Theatre Of Dreams
by HStorm
Summary: The Dungeon has been dormant for years, the Opposition has become impossible to contain. Then Treguard and Majida receive unexpected news - the fall of Marblehead.
1. Theatre Of Dreams Part 1

THEATRE OF DREAMS  
PART I  
  
"The problem with democracy," thought Treguard, gently wiping the spittle out of his beard, "is that even the morons gets a vote."  
He, Majida and their guide, a charmless elfin individual calling herself Dervlinne, were presently pushing through the crowded market square of Krochester, a tiny, and less-than-salubrious village about forty miles south of the ruined town of Dunsholm. The exact reason why they were there was threatening to fade from his mind in the tide of frustration he was enduring. What he was in no danger of forgetting was whose fault it was.  
He and Majida had set off through Dunkley Wood six days earlier, trying to locate Lord Fear's likely new hideaway. News had reached Knightmare Castle some days before that Marblehead had fallen to Celtic raiders during another furious row between Lord Fear and Grimaldine. What the row had been about this time - the Brollachan had long since returned to its creator - Treguard couldn't imagine, but the key information that Lord Fear and his cronies had disappeared after losing the Castle actually concerned him more than news of a successful defence would have done. At least while Marblehead remained in the hands of the Opposition, Treguard would have no trouble keeping track of Fear. His disappearance into the night meant he could build for the future without hindrance from the Powers That Be.  
Treguard and Majida had manipulated the ancient life debt of Arawn, King of Anwin Wood, to provide guidance and support during the journey south toward Fear's fallen realm. Reluctantly, Arawn had assigned the maiden Dervlinne. She was no veteran of the woodland elves, indeed she was barely three thousand years old, but still she was more than efficient enough for Treguard's purpose, which was to find a safe path above ground to Marblehead. Heading that way via the dungeon was not a possibility, as after seven years and more it still hadn't finished reforming itself. So without the usual shortcuts available, it was a case of trudging south until Treguard's aging feet were so sore and so covered in blisters that he felt like a new pair of feet were growing on his heels.  
And now they'd arrived in Krochester. Now never let it be said that Majida or Dervlinne were anything less than committed, resourceful and hardened adventurers, gifted explorers to a tee. What's more, they were nothing if not cheerful, supportive companions as well. And they were not cheerful, supportive companions. They were both stubborn, constantly answered back, and would never think twice about wandering off in any direction on a whim and leaving Treguard hunting for them for ages in all these identical trees. Add to all that Majida's unending complaints about the weather being too cold and wet in "thees stoopid Inglant-place of yours", and then repeat the dose for six days, and the degree to which Treguard's temper must have eroded could only be guessed at. Except that if he caught anyone trying to guess such a thing he would probably have yelled at them for it, so it was probably not a good idea anyway.  
Treguard had been to Krochester years before - it was during his journey to Earl Geoffrey's tourney at Alvingham Castle - and had been stunned then by the total lack of respect its inhabitants had for authority. When Dervlinne had indicated that the safest path to Marblehead passed through the vicinity of Krochester and that they should divert there to collect fresh supplies, Treguard had been firmly against it. He knew that the villagers of Krochester were bad-tempered and hostile to any man of the gentry and that paying them a visit was like volunteering to get thrown in the stocks. Majida disagreed with him, probably for the sake of it as usual, and as Treguard was out-voted, they went into Krochester and were warmly met with a bracing round of verbal abuse, rotten vegetables and flying spit.  
"Mogdred," sighed Treguard, "never gave me this trouble."  
The timing could hardly have been better, or worse, depending on your point of view, as they'd guided their lone horse into town on market day. This meant that supplies were available to buy everywhere, but it also meant that there were people everywhere too. And as soon as they saw Treguard and Majida in their luxurious apparel, and Dervlinne, her face and lithe figure hidden in a rich ermine cloak, there were resentful glowers and thrown objects. The three travellers tried to maintain a dignified silence, to turn the other cheek. More accurately, Treguard maintained silence and turned the other cheek. Dervlinne invariably muttered faerie curses in the direction of the throwers, while Majida invariably threw something back at them.  
"I hate people who say I told you so," admitted Treguard, "except me. I told you we should have gone on to the next village."  
"Ya ya ya," sneered Majida, as she yanked the horse's reins with needless force. "And I s'pose is all my fault!"  
"The thought had occurred."  
"Typical!" sniffed Majida, narrowly dodging a small mouldy potato some old man had hurled in her direction. "You're hell to walk with, y'know. You never stop complaining...!"  
The poor horse, Rod, had been carrying all their supplies across the countryside for them for the past six days and, although he couldn't say so, he was getting almost as annoyed as Treguard with all the moaning and griping from Majida. And the way she kept tugging his reins so hard. He'd rather have been led around by that nice Mellisandre again, but ever since she'd gotten lost in the Maze, Rod was getting bullied by this horrible genie. And being a horse, it goes without saying that he couldn't complain about it.  
Treguard turned and gave Majida a look like Lord Fear's favourite fireball. "Majida, I've always wondered what a genie's insides look like. Don't give me any further incentive to find out."  
Majida's mouth curled into an upward frown, the usual look of immense stupidity she emanated whenever she couldn't understand an English expression. "What ees thees 'een-sen-teev'-thing?"  
"I don't know," answered Treguard, "but it's something that grows more acute with every word from your overused mouth."  
He suddenly turned sharply, and, before Majida's overused mouth could offer any more verbiage, said. "What the devil...? Where's Dervlinne gone now?"  
Treguard had thought it a bad idea for Dervlinne to enter the village, regardless of whether anyone else went with her. Being an elf, she was not exactly going to be in her element entering a mortal settlement, but she'd insisted on going with them anyway. If he didn't know elves any better, Treguard could have sworn she was scared to be left outside on her own. For that he would hardly blame her, it was not the most congenial of environments or the friendliest of townsfolk to encounter on your own, but there was something undeniably very odd about her. Or rather, there was something very normal about her, normal in human terms, which made her behaviour very odd in an elf. She seemed jumpy, at times irascible, and yet also timid. Her tendency to answer back was not unusual for an elf dealing with mortals, but in his experience elves were good at hiding their fear. Dervlinne was unmistakably the most nervous elf he had ever met, more flappable than many humans he had known. She and Majida predictably were getting on very badly - the only thing they could ever agree on was that Treguard was always wrong, even though more often than not he was proven otherwise.  
Now Dervlinne had disappeared from view again, as she had done a number of times while they were in the forest.  
"I am here, honoured Dungeon Master," whispered Dervlinne's, soft, almost reed-like voice.  
Treguard whirled around again, and was taken aback to find Dervlinne standing less than seven inches from his nose. Oh, how he hated the way elves did that!  
"Where did you go this time?" he snapped at her harshly.  
"I was here, honoured Dungeon Master," Dervlinne reassured him, her pale green eyes burning into his own like, well, like the eyes of an elf. There was nothing else in the world that was quite like it. "I merely moved to a lower stationary position that allowed me to better evade detection or unwished-for contact with the herbal projectiles these mortals insist on bombarding us with."  
"She mean she duck," said Majida simply. "She no use one word when fifty will do. These big-ears people are all like that."  
Treguard was about to point out to Majida that she was a fine one to complain about other people talking too much, but in the end thought better of it. "That way," he thought, "lies madness."  
Dervlinne glowered at Majida for a moment before turning back to Treguard. "If the honoured Dungeon Master will allow it, I have observed a stall that should serve our need for supplies."  
"Well hurry up and show us, big-ears person!" Majida growled.  
"If you'd be so good?" said Treguard, a little more diplomatically.  
"It will serve the wishes of my liege to serve the wishes of the honoured Dungeon Master," answered Dervlinne, turning and leading them between a pair of ricketty wooden stalls with its owners looking a bit put upon that for some reason nobody wanted to buy their worm-ridden bean sprouts, to a larger and rather grander-looking wagon on the edge of the market square.  
Treguard was getting really fed up with Dervlinne calling him "honoured Dungeon Master". As much as anything else, her tone whenever she said it was so thickly laden with sarcasm it wasn't as if she was fooling anyone. It was clear from the first moment that she deeply resented being appointed to the task by Arawn, and no amount of rosy nominatives were going to hide that if she kept uttering them like a curse from Satan's behind.  
The wagon they arrived at was somewhat larger than most of the others, and rather better set out. A thin tarpaulin was raised over the top sheltering it, although there was no rain, and the goods on sale were of surprisingly good quality. There was a short, squattish man sat on a stool in front of the wagon, also sheltered by the tarpaulin. He was chewing on a straw that was longer than his own arm, and had a mild, serene expression on his face, apparently focusing on some unseen object in the middle distance. He had an odd green hood wrapped around his head, and a ring on his middle finger made out of an ugly coppery material.  
"Yup yup yup," murmured the man with the contentedness of one idly drinking warm mead while the war to end all wars rages all about him. "Har har, yup yup yup." The man looked at Treguard expectantly, then Majida, then Dervlinne, then finally his eyes settled on the horse who was still feeling peeved about getting dragged around this filthy market square by a rude Hispanic genie. "Yup yup yup. Nop? Nop nop nop." He looked away from them again and returned to his task of staring at unseen objects about two and three-eights of an inch from his eyeball. It was clearly a difficult task for him, one that required a great deal of concentration.  
Treguard looked at Majida and Dervlinne, then at the man again. "Erm, excuse me?"  
The man's eyes turned away from the particular air molecule that was apparently holding them in thrall, and aimed themselves at Treguard once more. "Yup yup yup," he explained.  
"I think that mean 'Can I help?'" Majida put in helpfully.  
"We're er, on a journey south," Treguard explained to the man in the green hood. "About forty miles or so further."  
"Oh," said the man brightening. "Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Seeseeseesee!" His mouth spurted some droplets of unpleasantness as he spoke.  
Treguard blinked. "'Si'? What, are you Spanish as well?"  
"Of course he not Spaniss," wailed Majida. "He just talk funny."  
Again, Treguard was tempted to make the point to Majida about pots and kettles, again he resisted. To the man;"Do you understand what I'm saying?"  
The man nodded benignly. "Stanstanstan yoooo ama sayy? Questy zat." The look on his face had changed from cheerful brainlessness to cunning amusement.  
Treguard stared at him for a long moment, suddenly gripped by a conviction that he'd met this man somewhere before. It wasn't easy to work out where, whoever it was, the way he spoke seemed to make thought very difficult. That, thought Treguard with poor grace, might explain a few things about him.  
"Traytraytray!" called the man, suddenly grabbing Treguard's hand and shaking it vigorously. "Newyoofinkadid! Bam! Bam!" He pointed at himself proudly.  
Treguard was initially taken aback at this display of excited over familiarity, not to mention a fresh stream of uncontrolled water from the man's gob.  
"He says he knows you, honoured Dungeon Master, " explained Dervlinne. Treguard and Majida looked at her doubtfully.  
"You understand him?" asked Treguard.  
"Yes," said Dervlinne. "My people have encountered this condition in mortals many times over the centuries. It's called 'No front teeth'."  
The man grinned a ghastly toothless smile.  
"Ah," nodded Majida, "That what they call 'The spit hittin' the fan', ya?"  
"Um..." said Dervlinne.  
"Certainly not!" snarled Treguard. The memory of Majida once calling a dungeoneer a 'smart bottom' still left him rigid with embarrassment in his quieter moments, and the thought still troubled him that one of these days she might get a vulgarism right. He turned to the man hurriedly, before Majida could explore the subject any further. "You know me?"  
Dervlinne interjected again. "He seems somewhat perturbed that you don't recognise him, honoured one. He says his name is Bumptious."  
Treguard looked at the man in astonishment, suddenly realising that he was indeed a dwarf. But Bumptious? Could he...? He saw the way the man was nodding happily. Well by crikey; it was Bumptious, the gold miner who had excavated level two of the Knightmare dungeon over ten years before. He had shaved off his beard, and Treguard couldn't for the life of him work out why he'd have chosen such a horrible hood, but it was him alright.  
"Bumptious! What are you doing he-...?" Treguard's voice tailed off when he realised that he wouldn't understand the answer. "Never mind that. Tell Dervlinne what happened to your teeth."  
Bumptious nodded and embarked on another stream of gibberish, while Dervlinne translated;-  
"He says that he had an accident while mining a dungeon below a nearby castle."  
"Oh?" said Majida, eyebrow raised. "Which castle?"  
"It was attacked a few weeks ago," continued Dervlinne. It was unclear whether it was her who was ignoring Majida or if it was Bumptious. "The raiders brought down one of the castle's walls, and it caused a rockslide in the caverns below ground..."  
"Marblehead!" thundered Treguard. "You were mining Marblehead!"  
"Yupyupyup!!" confirmed Bumptious, his head nodding up and down so rapidly his voluminous nose almost faded into a blur, then continued his story.  
"The cave-in wouldn't have happened, of course," sniffed the elf as she translated with just a hint of disdain, "if the dwarf hadn't carelessly weakened the cavern walls without firstly putting up appropriate tunnel supports..." Bumptious gave Dervlinne the affronted look of a man whose words had been blatantly-mistranslated in front of a foreign audience, "...and he was caught in the rockslide."  
"Hurt did it?" asked Majida obtusely.  
Bumptious jabbered more details to the elf.  
"To be precise," Dervlinne translated, "he lost nine teeth, suffered a broken jaw, sprained an elbow ligament, jarred his neck, and split his tongue in three separate places."  
"Oooh nasty," commented Treguard with sympathy.  
"Is that why he no talk proper then?" asked Majida.  
Even by the highest standards of cretiny, standards which surely applied to Majida, this question belonged on the list of the all-time truly stupid questions. Therefore, Treguard and Dervlinne gave her a quick look that said "Shut up, before we trim your fingernails very clumsily with a giant pickaxe" and returned their attention to Bumptious. "Why were you excavating there of all places?" demanded Treguard. "Surely there must be dozens of safer places to dig for gold?"  
Jabber, jabber went Bumptious.  
"Honoured Dungeon Master," explained Dervlinne, casually sidestepping a flying lettuce hurled in her direction from the ill-mannered crowd, "It seems the dwarf was not attempting to obtain gold. He was prospecting for a rare mineral reputed to be found in the territory. Apparently said mineral was the staple diet of the Mozcaro..."  
"What are dees Moskeetos?" demanded Majida.  
"The Mozcaro," Treguard corrected her firmly, "are a tribe of gnomic scholars from Cornwall. Hordriss told me about them once. They're an aloof bunch, peace-loving but quarrelsome in dealing with humans. They have the sharpest teeth of all the creatures of England."  
"They better if they eat rock."  
"The Mozcaro are in great danger, honoured one," continued Dervlinne, determined not to be deflected from the subject. "Their dependence on the mineral paloranite to feed themselves forces them to lead a nomadic existence to find food. Unfortunately they have been unable to locate a fresh source of the mineral, and their stocks are dangerously low. This is why they have requested the help of Bumptious."  
Treguard shook his head quietly, and ignored the rest of Dervlinne's translation - he could guess the rest of it. Bumptious had been convinced to come out of retirement and he had searched all the possible territories he could for paloranite. Innocently he had approached Marblehead, unaware of the identity of its vile Lord, and requested that he be allowed to search the caverns of the dungeon below. And in return for an extortionate fee, the foul Technomancer had agreed to let Bumptious prospect in his castle's dungeon.  
"...And Bumptious is now here selling goods to raise the funds he needs to replace his mining equipment," Dervlinne concluded, now sounding incredibly bored with the sound of her own voice. "Once he's managed to restock he plans to return to Marblehead and resume his search."  
"How like Lord Fear to exploit the dire needs of others for his own gain!" spat Treguard. "This makes our task doubly urgent. We shall head for Marblehead with you, Bumptious, and help you search for the ore you need."  
"Shall we?" said Majida in surprise. "What about the Fearlord thingy- person? He won't wan' us digging his dungeons up."  
"We need to investigate the ruins of Marblehead anyway, Majida," Treguard pointed out. "We might as well help Bumptious out while we're there. It would be in keeping with our code of honour wouldn't you say?"  
"Oh yeah, big right, of course," sneered Majida, "Dees I get from guy who send little children into damp haunted dungeons to fight skeletrons and big bug-eye things. Now he talk about code of honour, ya?"  
"That's right," answered Treguard. "But I could talk about examining your insides again if you prefer." Treguard surveyed the contents of the stall. They all looked like they could be useful for the journey ahead, and even for a little dungeoneering. That surprised Treguard somewhat. Although Bumptious would have had to be prepared for a few of the nastier entities that lay below Marblehead, with the dungeons still out of phase at present such threats would surely have been modest. As a professional miner, surely Bumptious would have been concerned with the correct equipment for digging? But then Bumptious probably hadn't realised that the dungeons were currently out of phase. "Alright Bumptious, pack up the wagon and our horse can drag it south for you. We'll need most of this equipment when we get there."  
Everyone looked up at Rod, who was making a slightly miffed whinnying noise in response to these tidings.  
"Sorry," said Treguard, politely patting Rod's nose. He felt a bit embarrassed talking to a horse in front of other people, but it seemed the least gesture he should make.  
Majida, typically, was less sympathetic. "Oh shut up, cat meat!" she snarled, thumping the long-suffering animal on the same nose.  
Rod was now mightily offended, and more than a little upset at receiving so little gratitude. Here he was, straining his poor tired muscles to haul all this heavy equipment across the damp lands of the North for these whining hominids, and this was the thanks he got. But he was a proud, upstanding horse and would not resort to cowardly running away or spiteful tit-for-tat bulshiness. So he satisfied himself with a lengthy step forward, barging Majida to the floor, and a grunt of triumph.  
Treguard tried not too hard to hide a smug grin as he helped Majida to her feet. The genie looked down at her now-filthy fatigues in horror. "All dis Inglant-muddiness of yours, I'm dripping in!" she cried, barely coherently.  
"Yes," confirmed Dervlinne, not realising that it was another complaint, not a request for clarification. "Perhaps," she offered as an afterthought, "you should have worn something more appropriate for foresting before you set off? Those clothes would be ideal if we were in the middle of a desert. But this is hardly a desert."  
Bumptious also had a sadistic grin on his face. It clearly hadn't taken him any longer than Dervlinne to start loathing Majida. He turned to Treguard and started jabbering again.  
"What's he saying?" asked Treguard, sidestepping another rotten vegetable surreptitiously hurled his way from the crowd.  
"He says he is grateful for your offer, honoured one, and asks when we shall depart." Dervlinne sounded slightly cheesed off, the conversation clearly a chore to her, but Treguard, diplomatic to the last, made no objection.  
"I'd like to leave town as soon as possible," said Treguard. Unsurprisingly, he got no quarrel with this suggestion. "We need rest though, so I suggest we head about half a mile out, then set up camp."  
"Hey," smiled Majida, much impressed, "You make some sense thees time."  
"Thank you," growled Treguard, helping Bumptious to start loading the wagon, "That's most encouraging."  
  
* * *  
  
Night had fallen by the time Treguard's ramshackle band found a reasonably sheltered spot to make camp. They were in fact a good deal more than a mile South of Krochester by now, and had entered the vast wooded mass of Delamere. The extra canopy of leaves on the high branches had been worth all the searching though, because the dark clouds had rolled in, and the air was already suffused with annoying spots of drizzle. It was quite a pleasant patch of ground they'd set up on. The ground was firm, but cushioned with a fall of gentle heathers and bracken, and it was dry.  
Majida, somewhat sullenly, had gathered wood and they'd built a good warming fire to heat their aching joints. Bumptious, uncomplaining - largely because complaint is quite futile when you can't speak clearly - was cheerfully warming his hands between constantly jostling with Majida for more elbow room. The reason so much space was required was Majida insisted on reclining around a ridiculously large stretch of the fire's perimeter, trying to get her ruined clothes at least dry enough to continue hiking in a reasonable degree of comfort.  
Dervlinne had soon tired of their constant shoving and nudging which had inevitably caught her up in it, and had climbed into the branches of the nearest tree, curled up, and manifestly failed to fall asleep.  
Treguard meanwhile sat to one side on a rock, trying to untangle some of the knots in his grey-streaked beard. He was trying to give the impression that he was above mixing with his petty companions, and there was an echo of truth in this. But he was more trying to avoid showing the others his greatest weakness. His age. After nearly a week of wandering through the Northern wilderness he was at the end of his tether physically, and he wasn't sure if he was going to be in any kind of worthwhile shape when they arrived at Marblehead, which would hopefully be in three days. He really felt he was getting too old for all this. This was what his dungeoneers were for. But with the Dungeon paths closed, the elf paths dormant, and the path between the Past and the Future still dispersed, he was having to do this himself, and he was having to go the long way round as well.  
He so wished he hadn't installed the Pool of Veracity in Dunshelm. When the great Troll had invaded the Castle, the magic mirror in the antechamber was damaged - only slightly, it still worked, but the damage was just great enough that the mirror couldn't survive a complete phase shift of the Dungeon. While rooting around for a replacement, the Powers That Be raided Lord Fear's hideout above Goth, and found it abandoned. But left behind was the infamous Pool of Veracity through which Lord Fear had for so long witnessed, and wherever possible perverted, the Outside World, and Treguard had decided that it was probably a suitable replacement.  
How wrong he had been. The implements of Techno-sorcery were firmly Lord Fear's preserve or no one's at all. The Pool had tainted the purer magic of the Dungeon, which, be it dominated by the evil of the Gruagach or cleansed by Chivalry, had never before been sullied by technology. Now the Dungeon seemed unable to reform itself, and Treguard had even found that removing the Pool again had made no difference - the damage was done. And now without the power of the Dungeon behind him, he had lost his biggest advantage, and so the last few years of battle against Fear had been unhappy ones. This expedition was just the latest example of the problems he had been having. Pleanty of endeavour, just not enough mobility.  
He remembered wistfully what a fast and powerful swordsman he had been in his younger years. He wished that this sort of thing could have happened back then instead, when he still had the energy to cope without the aid of the Dungeon paths. Of course, things might not have turned out any better, because back then he had been a mercenary, and he would have as likely accepted a job from Lord Fear as fought against him. Pathetic. Still, it showed that age had its advantages - the greedy sadist Treguard had been in his youth wouldn't have had the wit to understand the threat that Fear posed. Truth be told, he hadn't been a whole lot better in Mogdred's time either - Treguard nowadays cringed when he remembered his short-sighted amusement at the misfortune of so many of his own dungeoneers as they fell to the perils of Knightmare. There was so much he could have achieved back then, and what did he do? Pour scorn on his own!  
Why is youth wasted on the young? he thought. Or is that, why is wisdom wasted on old age?  
  
* * *  
  
"...And did those feet in ancient times," proclaimed the snarling tones of history's most talented gloater, "...walk upon England's mountains green, and say 'Golly, what a mound of nose excreta! Let's change it into something red and lumpy...' and..." Lord Fear fixed his captive audience with a warning glare, "...I can promise you that when they said 'red and lumpy' they weren't talking about spaghetti sauce."  
Skarkill sighed as he watched this latest display of grotesque theatrics from his master. At present he and Raptor were sitting on either side of a dungeon cell, while its sole occupant was forced to listen to round after round of Fear's unctuous monologues.  
"It's all about me, of course," continued Fear, "so it goes without saying that it's all about brilliance too."  
"If it goes without saying," said the nasal tones of the suffering occupant in the cell, "don't say it."  
"Please be quiet when I'm talking at you," said Fear, rather politely all things considered.  
"Or?"  
"What do you mean 'or'?" Fear demanded. "You mean you want me to threaten you? I can promise you, there's no-one better at that."  
"Ah, don't make me laugh," grumbled the tough voice of the prisoner.  
"Good idea," smirked Fear. "I don't want you to die laughing, do I?"  
"Why not?" asked the prisoner. "I can't still be of any use to you now, surely?"  
"Would it were so. The spell will stop working when you die," explained Fear. "I'll be perfectly happy to tickle you to death once Treguard is beaten. But not before."  
"Oh." The prisoner seemed to turn this thought over in his head for a moment. "Well thanks for clearin' that up."  
"My pleasure," answered Fear. "I do love the sound of my own voice."  
"Don' we all, yer Fearship?" Skarkill put in hurriedly. Raptor nodded vigorously as well.  
"No," said the prisoner. "I thought it was just a method of torture. I'm sure being forced to listen to you contravenes a Magna Carta of some kind."  
Fear scowled. Happily, before he could offer his own opinions, there was the irritating buzz of the communication alarm. Fear turned from the cell-chamber and walked to his sixteen million colour/stereo-surround-sound techno-magic mirror. It remained dark, but a hissing voice rang out across the room.  
"Your Lorrd-nessss!"  
"Yes, Lissard, me ol' Kermit?" Lord Fear responded. "What news?"  
"Your Lorrd-nessss!" said the voice of the Atlantean. "All is prossss- ceeding according to schedule. Treguard has set up camp-nessss to the South of Krochess-ss-ssster. On present progress-nessss, arrival at Marblehead will be in three dayssss. Precisssse-ly as you antissss-cipated-ness."  
Lord Fear rubbed his hands together in delight. "Excellent, Lissard. Continue to keep me updated, old flubber."  
"Of coursssse, your Lord-nesss-..."  
Lord Fear snapped his fingers and the mirror switched off. Fear returned to the cell-chamber "His voice is quite pleasant over the wireless don't ya think? Nice not to get showered in frog-slobber every time he says 'isosceles' for a change."  
Skarkill shrugged non-commitally. Lord Fear shrugged as well, unconcerned. If Skarkill didn't have the intelligence to see a blessing even when it ran up to him and hit him over the head with a cricket bat that was his problem. Fear then spread his arms melodramatically. Skarkill and Raptor recoiled slightly, half-expecting the fireballs to fly. But instead, Fear resumed his monologue.  
"And as he gazed down upon the rank and file, as he saw the full artistic glory of his creation, the full terror of his treachery, the fruits of his conquest, the world did gaze upon him and they did cry 'Fear! Fear! Ruler of all England! Ruler of the seven Worlds...!'"  
Raptor looked at Skarkill enquiringly. Being a comparatively newer recruit and having always tried to avoid his boss as much as possible, Raptor still didn't understand some of Fear's more peculiar habits as well as the other Opposition goons. "Who's 'e talkin' about?" he whispered.  
Skarkill let loose another sigh. "'Imself. 'E's going through the 'Third Person Delusions of Grandeur' phase now."  
Raptor nodded wisely to himself. "Right. Instead of the usual 'first person gloating till 'is face cracks in two' phase?"  
Skarkill smiled faintly. "That's right. You're gettin' the 'ang of it at last." The smile melted into a resigned shrug of boredom. "This place turns into a right theatre when he gets in the mood."  
  
* * *  
  
While slicing through the undergrowth with the mid-section of Morpheus' blade, Treguard snarled as he snagged his ankle on a thick bramble-branch. He felt the tiny barbs digging into the leather of his boots, and had to bend over to untether his foot before he could resume walking.  
It had been two days now since leaving Krochester, and having departed the forest of Delamere, they were now trekking through wild and thick marshland. The weather had turned increasingly wet and windy, and as the rain lashed into the faces of the tiny band, so tempers had begun to fray again. Trees were few and far between around this area, so shelter was not an option, and this of course meant Majida was complaining more than ever. "We supposed to walk, no swim! It too cold for swim. I cold. I wet." She ran up to Treguard and stood nose to nose with him, a look of the shallowest hatred in her dark eyes. "You listen? I WET!  
"I knew you'd find something to say which I could agree with some day," grunted Treguard. "Look at it this way, Miss. At least all the rain's washing the mud out of your clothes."  
"Oh yea, great," said Majida, "New-moanier ees much more fun, yea?"  
"Oh yes," snarled Treguard, pushing past her and resuming the march through the deep marshes. "Trust me, Majida, right now the thought of you contracting pneumonia is the one thing which is keeping me going."  
A small way ahead he saw Dervlinne had led the horse and wagon past them and was heading for a cluster of trees in the distance. "We can take shelter there until the storm subsides, honoured Dungeon Master," she called back.  
Treguard looked at Majida and Bumptious, both looking exhausted and bedraggled. It was getting to the point where none of them would be in any shape to explore Marblehead if they didn't get regular opportunities to recuperate. Treguard nodded, and they pushed on to take cover under the trees.  
As is always the way with these things, by the time they arrived the storm was beginning to ease off a little, but the travellers were still grateful for the chance to rest in the (relative) dry. Dervlinne had tethered the uncomplaining Rod to one of the smaller trees, making sure he had enough cover from the rain and plenty of grass to refresh himself on. Then she joined the others who were all sat under the largest tree, a magnificent grey oak. Treguard, unconcerned by the impact it would have on his popularity, pulled his boots off and gave his toes a sorely needed breath of air. Majida was now too soaked to complain anymore, be it about the shocking state of her clothes ot the even more shocking smell of Treguard's feet. Bumptious jabbered cheerfully to everyone who would listen, which in this case was only the horse, about how grateful he was to Treguard and his companions for their assistance in this vital quest to save the Mozcaro, and how much he appreciated the importance of their own quest, and how he would of course do everything he could to help them with that as a return of favour, and how much he sympathised with them these hardships they were putting themselves through for the greater common good, and how he respected them all the more for it, and how he understood keenly that they were clearly brave upstanding and chivalrous people whom he was deeply honoured to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with in this most dire of emergencies and that of course he was in no way attempting to imply that his own mission was any more important than their own and that he deeply hoped that if they did choose to infer that, that he had in no way contravened any of the bye-laws of Knightmare Castle, but that if he had that he was deeply sorry for the offence he had caused and that he wouldn't have ever done such a thing if he hadn't still been half-insensible from the injuries he had suffered at Marblehead, which were a deeply shameful blemish on the Opposition's safety record and in fact he was tempted to sue Lord Fear for the damages, so in fact, wouldn't it be fairer if Treguard blamed Lord Fear for the offence, and consequently sued him, although of course he did see, if that was how they felt, that it is a bit much to blame Fear for everything that was wrong with the World, because of course, there were some bad things which happened from time-to-time which even Fear was not responsible for, and indeed had nothing to do with at all.  
Which was all a bit pointless, because of course, Treguard, Majida and Rod couldn't understand a word he was saying, and Dervlinne wasn't paying attention.  
"Dervderv!" pouted Bumptious when he realised he might as well have been talking to the tree for all the response he was getting.  
Dervlinne looked up at him, her expression broken with lines of concern.  
"Something troubles you, she-sprite?" asked Treguard, his tone sigh- like, the relief he felt at getting off his feet almost tangible.  
"She probably sniffing your stinking feets," said Majida sourly.  
"There is a presence here, honoured one," answered Dervlinne. She looked like she was in a trance. "I sense it..."  
"I already tell you," inisisted Majida. "It just Treguard's stinking..."  
"Shut up, Majida," suggested Treguard, slowly hauling himself back to his feet. He grunted unhappily at the renewed exertion - he'd only been seated a moment but already his joints had started tightening up. "What presence do you sense?"  
"There is something here, that is beyond question," Dervlinne nodded to herself. She was staring at the oak now. "Something, someone. Very familiar..."  
There was a sharp whooshing sound that made Majida and Bumptious spring to their feet with a start. Treguard looked up and saw a branch of the tree suddenly bending downwards and reaching out. He immediately drew his sword as he realised that the branch was reaching for Dervlinne.  
Dervlinne was lithe, Dervlinne was fast... but she stood rooted to the spot, her jaw dropped, her eyes fixed on the trunk of the tree.  
"Dervlinne, move!" snarled Treguard, raising Morpheus to strike. "It's a dryad..."  
The branch however wrapped itself around Dervlinne's slender figure. With a hideous creak it raised itself up, lifting Dervlinne off her feet and suspending her high above the ground. And yet still she uttered not a sound, but carried on staring with an icy wonderment. While Majida and Bumptious jumped away from the tree and hunted frantically for cover, Treguard turned and thrust the blade deep into the tree's bough. There came from within it a most unearthly sound, a strangled howl of agony and rage, and another branch suddenly swung down and swatted Treguard aside as if he were a mere insect. The branch then curled around the sword and yanked it effortlessly from the wooden flesh of the mighty tree troll.  
Treguard was dazed where he lay. He sat up woozily, rubbed the nasty red graze on his cheek where the branch had struck him. He looked up and saw that the branches of the tree were reaching in all directions, for Majida, for Bumptious, and for him. Dervlinne was still held in thrall, looking more curious than concerned, while Morpheus was also held in the dryad's vice-like grasp, far beyond Treguard's reach. He tried to edge away from the branch as it snatched at him, but it was no good. If he stood it would make it easier to reach him, as long as he stayed squat he wouldn't be able to move fast enough.  
And then the face appeared. The very bark of the tree's skin seemed to fold in and split, to warp and to concentralise, like a pool of water with two stones cast into it. The eyes were hooded and dark, and to look into them gave the impression of staring into the passage of infinity itself, such was their age, so great was the time they had seen. The mouth split open the base of the trunk, and a deep, yokelling voice rumbled forth.  
"Clumsy feet, closed minds, careless words and thoughtless sounds. We will NOT abide them!"  
Treguard was finally snared in the grasp of the branch. He felt its sharp thorns digging into him as it curled about him and slowly hauled him upwards.  
"Oakley..." hissed Treguard, recognising the tree troll, "How can you be here...?"  
"'Tis anywhere we can be, where the land be kind to tree," growled Oakley. "Those who walk the path must understand the path they walk. But when the trees do sleep, you talk and talk and talk. Leaf mold we will not. So hang you we will until you rot."  
"No!" squealed Majida. "We no know you were sleep..."  
"Ignorance is no excuse!" thundered the tree troll. "You walk a path you do not know. So now you face the moment of truth. Death is thus where you must go..."  
Treguard knew much about this fearsome creature from Pickle. It was very much like a wall monster in many respects, and although more intelligent, it had some similar weaknesses in common with, not just wall monsters, but many faerie creatures. One such weakness, he knew, was its inability to resist a puzzle.  
"I challenge you!" Treguard gasped.  
"Challenge?" exclaimed Oakley, slightly perplexed.  
"I know the path, I understand it!" Treguard appealed hurriedly. "If you don't believe me, test me."  
Oakley emitted a soft boom of laughter. "Us? Test you? For false and true? Test your mind about forest and tree? Ha! Very well, so it shall be. So test you we will, and test you now. Test your thoughts, your belief, and your wooded know-how. Free you'll all be if you tell a good tale. But crush you we will if the test you fail!"  
Treguard didn't need it pointing out to him that he was in no position to dispute these terms. He and his companions were all held fast in the dryad's immense grasp, and even if they could get free, it would be the work of just seconds for Oakley to kill them. They were slaves to Oakley's will, all of them. That is, all of them bar the horse, whom Treguard now noticed was watching their predicament with something that looked suspiciously like callous amusement. "Give me your test, tree troll!" snapped Treguard, trying absurdly to make it sound like he was the one in command of the situation. "I'll answer you."  
"Very well," rumbled Oakley.  
  
"Twas on the forest isle of Old Kintyre, the first of the Westermen did walk on fire. Trapped he was, in a forest in flames. There was nowhere to run, no time for games. The North half of the isle was a raging inferno, and it spread with the breezes, for south did they blow. The man could not swim, no help was at hand, no boat was in reach to take him clear of this land. From all corners the island would soon be afire, every inch swallowed in its terrible ire. All at hand were two sticks to fight for life, no use against a blaze though, its fury so rife. And yet he survived, unscathed bar inhalation, so tell me how he escaped the dire conflagration."  
  
That was the conundrum he had to solve? Tricky. Treguard thought for a long moment. It was safe to assume that it had nothing to do with gathering water from the shore and throwing it on the flames. But how could a man trapped on an island, with nothing available to him but a pair of sticks possibly escape if he couldn't swim? He could hardly build a raft out of them. So what could he do...?  
  
To be continued... 


	2. Theatre of Dreams Part 2

THEATRE OF DREAMS  
PART II  
  
There comes a time in everyone's lives when so great a strain comes from monotony and uneventfulness, that a strange, almost reassuring calm can be derived from experiencing mortal danger or physical agony. Treguard, Lord of Dunshelm and Master of the Dungeon of Deceit, had long been familiar with this paradox. The deaths of his family and the entire House of Dunshelm during his teen years had orphaned him and left him drifting long without purpose through mainland Europe until the harsh and gruelling perils of the mercenary life, with its crude pleasures and purchased friendships, had brought some kind of shape to his being. An unpleasant shape perhaps, one which he would not be proud to remember in his later years, and also one which was uninspired - the pursuit of wealth through the blood of others hardly commanded much imagination. But all the hardships and ugly simplicity somehow fed a new sense of identity into Treguard, even stability, and after the destruction of his family, stability and a sense of self were what he most needed.  
Likewise the horrors he faced when reclaiming Dunshelm, now Knightmare, from the diabolical Gruagach had given him the ability to move on from his days as a mercenary and return to the code of Chivalry. Strangely, he might not have been half the man he was had his family not died, and had he not had to face the Gruagach's evil. It had been the making of the Lord of Knightmare.  
So it was that when the Lord of Knightmare now found himself and his companions held firmly in the brutal branches of a vast and powerful dryad in the marshes of the North, and even now felt the grip of these branches squeezing the strength out of his aging bones, the familiar atmosphere of hostility and impending doom seemed almost to settle him down. This was, as it were, familiar ground, this was the world as he knew it. He had a job to do, a challenge to answer, and all through his life that was what he had enjoyed the most.  
It should be acknowledged however, that the challenge in this case was not one of his favourite ones. He had always been a fearsome warrior with sword in hand, but solving the conundrums of faerie creatures was an art in which he was occasionally found wanting. His wits at puzzle solving were certainly far sharper than once they had been, but for all the wisdom that age had brought him it still wasn't his natural game. He preferred things to be just a little more direct.  
The great dryad, Oakley, had issued the challenge...  
  
"Twas on the forest isle of Old Kintyre, the first of the Westermen did walk on fire. Trapped he was, in a forest in flames. There was nowhere to run, no time for games. The North half of the isle was a raging inferno, and it spread with the breezes, for south did they blow. The man could not swim, no help was at hand, no boat was in reach to take him clear of this land. From all corners the island would soon be afire, every inch swallowed in its terrible ire. All at hand were two sticks to fight for life, no use against a blaze though, its fury so rife. And yet he survived, unscathed bar inhalation, so tell me how he escaped the dire conflagration."  
  
Treguard had considered the puzzle at some length, and was beginning to think that it was a trick question. But deep down he knew it wasn't. Oakley may have been highly intelligent, but he just wasn't the sort to use verbal sleights-of-hand, so to speak. How could a man who could not swim escape from a forest island that was in the throws of a fire? It had to be possible, or Oakley wouldn't have said the man survived.  
It would be great, thought Majida bleakly as she saw Treguard agonising over this puzzle, if another of these dryads came along and beat the Oak-thing up. She was dangling in the grasp of another branch about a quarter of the way around the tree from the Dungeon Master, and she was enjoying the experience no more than him. So why she thought that another dryad showing up at this point would be nice was unclear. Maybe she was too asphyxiated by the tightness of the branch constricting her lungs, but the reasoning went something on the lines of; -  
"If there's one good thing about a bad problem, it's that if an identical one comes along they might get in each other's way and solve themselves."  
This was, on the face of it, the most absurdly twisted piece of logic possible, even by Majida's appalling standards, but it was then that it clicked. In this ridiculous idea, lay the very truth they were gasping for (literally).  
"An answer, now," growled the tree troll, "Or agony you'll feel, and feel it, how."  
"Treguard!" Majida called out in excitement, not easy with the branch keeping her from breathing in too hard. "Treguard, I know answer!"  
It might just have been that Treguard was now out of breath too, but the look on his face seemed to have more than a hint of scepticism in it. From a little way above and to the right of Majida, she heard the sound of Bumptious jabbering ironically in his own wooded snare. She ignored him. A vague rumble in the distance told her that the drizzle was about to give way to thunder and lightning. Now was not a time to be sitting in a tree.  
"I mean it, Treguard," she promised. "Let me answer thees tree- thingie."  
Treguard was still staring at her doubtfully, but the simple fact was he was stumped, and he knew that Oakley wouldn't give him much more time to answer. Better probable death than certain death; so better an answer that was probably wrong than no answer at all. He looked down and nodded. "all right Majida. Tell him."  
"Speak now, genie-girl," Oakley instructed her, "Or the last you've seen of this mortal worl'."  
The bluntness of the threat shook the confidence of Majida's convictions slightly. What if her conclusions were as perverse as the logic that had brought them about? What if the answer she was about to give was not the right one? She had to clear her throat a couple of times before she could begin.  
"Thees man," she said in a faltering voice. "He rub sticks together to light new fire. Starts fire near South shore. Wind blow new flame South and he follow. New fire burn out on South shore. Old fire can't follow because trees now burned out. Both fires die, forest gone, but man survive."  
There was a brief silence, during which time everyone bar Dervilinne stared at Majida - Treguard and Bumptious in astonishment, Oakley in... well. The look on Oakley's enchanted face was a strange one, less than encouraging, and Majida was suddenly sure that her answer was wrong.  
"Or something?" she almost added, but happily she realised that such a lame afterthought would not win her the benefit of any doubt.  
"Truth accepted," stated Oakley finally. Treguard and Bumptious both laughed, purely in disbelief, while Majida just let a glazed look roll across her lovely dark eyes. "The evils of fire," continued Oakley, "can be beaten, by giving it land which it has already eaten. Life is doomed when fire is the master, but if even one life is saved, it is not quite disaster." Oakley developed a tranquil expression in his timeless face. "I trusts you now, yes. You may leave in peace, but nevertheless, I wants peace too so let me slumber. It's noisy enough with all that thunder. So go now and go quietly, and let me rest, or it's death for you next time without even a test." The branches suddenly went limp and Treguard, Majida, Dervlinne and Bumptious all fell back to the ground with painful thuds.  
They sat up, groaning quietly at the bruises on their limbs. By the time they looked up, Oakley's face had melted back into the bark of the oak tree, and the branches were all stood calmly and magnificently upright once more.  
Treguard pulled himself to his feet, coughing slightly, relieved but also baffled. He quietly retrieved his boots and his sword, which was perched upright in the ground. Meanwhile Majida, almost on tiptoe, untethered the horse and softly guided him away from the trees. The others all followed her away from the cover of the leaves, and only when they were sure they were far enough away not to wake Oakley up again did they dare speak.  
"Well done, Majida," Treguard muttered a little reluctantly. "How did you work it out?"  
Majida shrugged. "I thought it would be good if 'nother tree-thing come and fight thees tree-thing. Problem solve itself." She shrugged. "I realise same apply to riddle - fight fire with 'nother fire. So," she added, an infuriating superior expression setting in over her cheeks, "you still want me catch new-moanier huh?"  
The drizzle was still falling, not heavily-enough to complain about without feeling like a bit of a softie, but more than enough to be an annoyance, and the rumbles of distant thunder were getting annoyingly loud. Treguard gave Majida a look that said "Aaah, beginner's luck!" and turned his attention to putting his boots back on. His companions were terribly relieved.  
"So what happen to you up there, huh?" demanded Majida, giving Dervlinne an unfriendly nudge.  
Dervlinne glanced at her for a moment but refused to answer. She was now clearly out of the trance she'd fallen into when Oakley had appeared, but that didn't explain why she'd fallen into it in the first place. She stared back at the tree, her expression haunted.  
Treguard saw this, and decided he didn't want to know what was bothering her. He finished putting his boots back on, stood up straight, and made a face at the weather. "Let's just get out of here."  
  
* * *  
  
Lord Fear laughed merrily. This was the good bit, the bit when Sonia Snaggletooth told Jamie Doggerel that their spawn, Frogglerac, was not really Jamie's spawn at all. No, she'd spent the night all those years ago with Martin Foulpath. She had been unfaithful!  
Fear laughed again. This was the really great bit, his absolute favourite part, the bit when poor Jamie's face slowly split and collapsed into an expression of total woe and misery, the bit when his heart broke into the most delicious display of emotional inadequacy ever seen on inter- dimensional TV.  
Lord Fear adored BeastEnders, it was his all-time favourite soap opera, because no other was prepared to be quite so graphic in its portrayal of personal unhappiness. That sort of horror and tears made Fear laugh and laugh, the sort of thing he always adored seeing, the redoubtable crushing of the hopes and dreams of anyone except himself. BeastEnders wasn't meant to be a comedy of course, but as far as Fear was concerned, that was entirely a matter of opinion. BeastEnders made him laugh, and that was all that mattered.  
His prisoner hated it of course, and even more he hated the fact that Fear made sure the volume on his techno-magic mirror was set so loud. It meant it was impossible to ignore the terrible script and appalling melodramatic overacting. He wanted to throw up with all the shouting cockney accents and slapping of faces and swooning female skeletrons, and of course it was this displeasure that gave Fear his loudest laugh of all.  
Raptor and Skarkill were both snoozing on duty at the moment, but that was all right by Fear, it gave him the opportunity to watch in peace. On the other hand it seemed only to add to the prisoner's frustration, his misery clearly loving his guards' company.  
"Fear," he protested, just as his captor had hoped he would, "we've been watching this rot for hours. Can't we take a break?"  
With a single gesture, Fear paused the playback, then he turned and stared at the prisoner with a huge smile of triumph. "Oho," he mocked, "Had enough eh? Can't take anymore, eh? You jumped-up shovel-wagger, I always knew your kind were wimps! Can't even handle a little bit of TV."  
The prisoner gave his ample beard a tug. "You're boring."  
"I thought I was an Aries," smirked Fear, knowing that the taunts were really getting to his captive now.  
"How does that thing work anyway?" asked the prisoner, clearly desperate to change the subject and so delay the resumption of the video.  
"You like it then?" said Fear. "It is a classy model isn't it? Wide- screen, digital surround-sound, Sacrificial-Lamb 3D Accelerator Card, seven hundred and twelve Megabytes of Video memory... Y'see, the antenna on the roof picks up signals on the Astral Plane from the TBC..."  
"The what?"  
Fear looked a bit annoyed at being interrupted just as he was warming to his subject, "Hmm, what? Oh. Uh, the TBC, the Telepathic Broadcasting Circle. They're a bunch of Pagan wizards in the Hebrides who transmit top- quality theatre to selected subscribers by thought transference."  
"Selected subscribers?"  
"Only people who have one of those, I mean," explained Fear, pointing a bony finger at the mirror. "And the subscription costs a packet I can tell you."  
"Sounds like a real waste of power, these people," opined the prisoner. "Conmen."  
"Not at all," retorted Fear, "Sure, they're making big money, but that's because they're offering big quiz shows - The Feel of War Tunes, Who Wants To Kill A Millionaire?, The Weakest Drink, Name That Dismembered Body Part..."  
"Oh, well they must be all right then."  
"Yes," Fear confirmed, "nice chaps, the TBC. So as you can imagine, I'd kill them if it weren't for BeastEnders."  
The dreaded moment came as Fear reversed the previous gesture and the video resumed. While Fear seated himself on his new cast-iron, energised mecha-throne and made himself obscenely comfortable, the prisoner let his eyes roll shut. He curled up on the floor, covered his ears, and quietly wished Fear would try putting him on the rack instead.  
  
* * *  
  
The Valley of Gam was shrouded in a low fog by early evening when Treguard's band had arrived. They now couldn't have been more than a few hours' trek from Marblehead, and the quickest path above ground was through this valley. It was lined on both sides with very high, very steep hills, covered in moss and fungi, a dark reflection of the shortage of sunlight that broke through here. It was invariably very cloudy and although it was sheltered from the worst of the rain, it was always unpleasantly damp, the ground forever soft and yielding, walking always a treacherous labour.  
This fact was seized upon with relish by Majida, who had become so insufferable about solving Oakley's riddle that she was complaining with renewed vigour at every opportunity that came her way.  
That so many did was, ironically, a source of great satisfaction to Treguard, because it usually involved Majida slipping and sliding as the soft peat gave way under her and she earned another fresh bruise to her backside. The pain and embarrassment for Majida that this involved almost made the torrents of verbal abuse which followed in Treguard's direction worthwhile - the sadist lived on in him somewhere.  
Bumptious had fallen behind a little, muttering quietly to himself in his personalised dialect. Dervlinne on the other hand had pushed on somewhat, and Treguard could see her about a hundred yards or so ahead, standing on a slight rise in the valley floor, gazing into the impending murk.  
"Dervlinne!" called Treguard. "Slow down a bit! We can't keep up with you." The elf glanced over her shoulder at him, seemed almost to panic, and then suddenly ducked out of sight.  
Treguard stared at the sudden emptiness with a gasp of frustration. Now where was she wandering off to?  
  
* * *  
  
Lord Fear was in a less happy mood today. There was no more BeastEnders on this afternoon, and he had started to weary a little of mocking and torturing his prisoner. He couldn't tell if his sudden bad mood was caused by boredom with the waiting or the nervous anticipation. Soon... soon revenge would be his. Through this simple scheme of deception Treguard would soon be at the Opposition's non-existent mercy, and that power untold would soon be Lord Fear's, of that he was absolutely certain. He had considered all the possibilities, checked for any faults in his plans, and they'd seemed negligible. He was as sure as he had ever been about anything that this new approach would work - rather than attack Knightmare Castle, draw Treguard to him on Fear's own terms, in the same way he used to combat the dungeoneers.  
So why did he keep experiencing this nagging unease?  
The communications alarm suddenly blared into life. Fear snapped his fingers nonchalantly. "Yes, Lissard?"  
"Lord-nessss!" hissed the voice of the Atlantean, "your Lord-nessss! We have entered the Valley of Gam!"  
This news washed over Fear like the cleansing milk of pure mischief. "At last!" he gurgled with the kind of grin that suggested that callousness was an emotion designed expressly for him. "The waiting is nearly over, Lissard. Now listen carefully, and be sure to obey my instructions to the letter if you don't want your legs to be part of a French breakfast."  
"I am attending-nessss to your every word..."  
"Treguard must enter the Castle through the outer caverns," Fear ordered urgently, "If you can get his companions to stay with him the full distance, that'll be a bonus, but Treguard is the important one. Once he's reached the Pit of Fear the Chrono will do the rest. Oh and Lissard? A bit of free advice: Make sure you don't stand too close to any of them. The Pit is going to be a little wider than Treguard imagines."  
  
* * *  
  
Treguard, Majida and Rod finally caught up with Dervlinne, with tired old Bumptious someway back, struggling to keep up. There was a high hillock up ahead at a turn in the valley, and in the cover it gave it was more sheltered here, but also darker, than ever. Dervlinne was kneeling on the ground, eyes closed tightly, muttering. Majida nudged her with her foot.  
What immediately followed was so fast that Treguard didn't see it. All he saw was Dervlinne at first kneeling on the ground, getting a mild kick in the ribs from Majida, and the next he saw the genie pinned to the ground by the elf, who was holding a long silver dagger at her throat.  
"Er, I sorry," offered Majida in a display of politeness that was almost unique in the nine years Treguard had been forced to tolerate her. Dervlinne blinked in astonishment, released Majida and sprang to her feet. Majida also got up and made a perfunctory and somewhat futile attempt to brush herself down.  
"My apologies," said Dervlinne stiffly. "You broke my meditation. My reflexes are honed against even the slightest attacks while I am in..."  
"Meditation for what?" Treguard interrupted suspiciously.  
"Even elf-kind have their gods," answered Dervlinne cryptically.  
This seemed unlikely to Treguard, and rather less than an answer to his question anyway. But before he could pursue the point any further, he heard some tired and put-upon jabbering noises from over his shoulder. He turned and saw Bumptious staggering up to them, looking overheated, bothered, and about ready to yell blue murder in Treguard's face. But of course he didn't, there was no point, Treguard wouldn't understand him. He yelled at Dervlinne instead.  
"He says 'Why can't you horrible persons wait for him?'" Dervlinne translated. Bumptious looked even angrier and had another yell at her. Dervlinne tried to sound placatory, "all right, so I changed one or two words. I included the important details..."  
"Never mind," sighed Treguard, "We'll stop to rest here for a while..."  
"Treguard!" Majida called out, pointing up to the peak of the hill. "Look up there!"  
They all followed her gaze and saw stretching skywards far above them the bulbous stone tower of Marblehead, its dark smooth surface glistening with the broken promise of treasures and the evils of Man's darkest knightmares. It was still late afternoon but the sky around the tower seemed unnaturally dark, the clouds troubled and even angry. In other words, it was much as Knightmare Castle had been as Treguard had approached it on the day he confronted the Gruagach.  
After all these days of traipsing miserably South, Treguard should have felt elated to see that they'd finally arrived and they could get on with the real business of their journey. But one sight of the former lair of his techno-sorcerous archenemy filled his heart with foreboding. In spite of all the years he and Fear had been at loggerheads, he realised now that this was the first time he'd actually stood here himself, gazed upon Marblehead with his own eyes, and he was finding the pallid shadow it cast over the hills and valleys around it very unsettling.  
He was a little surprised to see that it looked relatively unscathed for a Castle that was supposed to have been taken in a recent raid. The outer walls looked a little more flawed and weathered than they had done whenever he had viewed them in the Pool of Veracity, but not warped or shattered as the reports had implied. Of course exaggeration was a common trait in any military hearsay, but it was still less-than-reassuring to see.  
He glanced at Majida who from her expression seemed to share his unease. Bumptious looked very nervous indeed, which, considering the experiences of his last visit, was quite understandable. Dervlinne on the other hand merely stared at the towering edifice above casually, curiously, no more emotion could Treguard fathom in her bearing than that. How strange, Treguard mused, that the nearer they got to a realm of potentially great danger the more relaxed and less nervous she seemed to become. It was almost as if...  
Dervlinne noticed the suspicious glare of mortal eyes on her narrow elfin face, and it seemed to make her uncomfortable. She returned the directness of Treguard's stare, almost defiantly. "Should we still make camp here, honoured Dungeon Master?" she asked, as though she were trying to drive the subject onto the narrowest tactical details.  
Treguard looked at her coldly. " No," he said carefully. "We're here now, we might as well get on."  
"And get in," added Majida. "It still freezy out here."  
"Not yet," snapped Treguard. "I want to scout the ground first."  
They all trudged along the valley floor until they reached the foot of the hill. A fine silvery glaze of moisture coated the grass here, adding to the unnatural feel of this accursed place.  
Treguard looked at Bumptious sternly. "You stay here and take care of the horse. The rest of us will look for a safe path to head uphill."  
The dwarf looked alarmed and was about to argue, but then seemed to think better of it, so Treguard carefully stepped against the foot of the hill, testing the amount of give. It felt uncomfortably smooth, but firm enough for climbing. He sharply drove the heel of his boot into the ground to gouge out a foothold, and then climbed a few steps further. Majida stepped into the foothold, and used it to begin her climb after Treguard. Dervlinne also followed, while Bumptious tethered Rod to a large rock, below a nearby outcropping, gently patting the horse on the nose.  
Treguard noticed as he climbed that the murk in this place was almost tangible, as though the darkness was physically providing a barrier which light was struggling to penetrate. This led him to consider Lord Fear. Such illusionary effects were well within the Techno-Sorcerer's capabilities. It might not have been an illusion of course, it could just have been shielded from the sun by the valley walls, but it nevertheless left Treguard wondering, could Fear still be nearby?  
They were halfway up the hillside when they heard a tiresomely familiar gibbering noise behind them. They glanced over their shoulders and saw Bumptious at the foot of the hill signalling up to them frantically. He seemed to be gesturing along the hillside towards Treguard's right.  
"What he saying?" asked Majida.  
Dervlinne narrowed her eyes slightly a couple of times, trying to concentrate on Bumptious' scrambled dialect, and then nodded to herself. "He says he has noticed a cavity in the hill face." She pointed the way Bumptious had indicated. "Apparently we'll find it in that direction."  
Treguard's gaze followed Dervlinne's finger, but in this poor light he could make out few details over a distance of more than a few yards. Something he could make out was on a slight outward bend in the hillside, about sixty yards off and a little way above his present altitude. There did appear to be a very dark area there, perhaps a recess in the hill face, maybe even the mouth to some kind of cave or tunnel. It certainly looked promising, though not very enticing. He was amazed that Bumptious could see it from ground level, he wasn't aware that dwarves had such excellent night- vision. Must have been all that time he spent in mines.  
Treguard nodded. "Let's have a look."  
It was hard work to scale along the face of the hill with the awkward tilted stance they were forced to adopt, and it ended up taking them well over ten minutes on the treacherous ground to reach the fissure, with Majida on a number of occasions coming close to slipping and tumbling down the hill. She muttered and grumbled to herself with every agonising step, but eventually they found themselves standing on the lip of a broad ledge a few feet below the fissure. From this close it was clear that it was no mere pockmark, it was a low tunnel burrowing deep into the hill. Treguard produced a rope from his knapsack.  
"Dervlinne, give me your knife," he ordered.  
Dervlinne hesitated. "Why do you require my weapon, honoured-..."  
"Perhaps," Treguard interrupted, aiming another suspicious glower in Dervlinne's direction, "you misunderstood. Or perhaps you don't entirely understand the nature of our relationship, even though your liege-lord and dread Royal Sovereign explained it to you in some detail. I give you an instruction. You obey the instruction. That is the entirety of our relationship. You questioning an instruction, or me having to justify an instruction to you, has not, has never, and will never have any part of it. I have given you an instruction and it has not yet been carried out. That is your only concern."  
Treguard held out his hand. Dervlinne reluctantly drew her dagger and offered it to Treguard, who grasped it and immediately drove the point of its blade firmly into a rock. It cut through with ease and held fast. He then started tying the rope to its hilt.  
"I can only wonder," Treguard murmurred as he worked, "about your general behaviour, she-sprite. So disobedient at times. At others, just so un-Elfin."  
Dervlinne was visibly bothered by Treguard's words, and also by the pointed looks she was now getting from Majida. "I do not understand, honoured Dungeon Master."  
"Do you not?" asked Treguard as he finished tying the rope to the dagger, and was now testing the knot. "It's just, well, I can understand the disobedience sometimes. It's just like an elf to resent the orders of a mortal. Perhaps it's a little harder to understand why an elf would display such disobedience against the express wishes of her King. But it's more than that, it's everything about you, Dervlinne. In fact," he added, not without sarcasm, "there are times when I doubt whether you're an elf at all."  
Majida signalled down to Bumptious and then started uncoiling the rope and lowering it down the hill.  
Dervlinne looked hurt. "What are you trying to say, Dungeon Master?" she demanded.  
It was Treguard's turn to be evasive. "Nothing," he answered. "Merely an observation." But Dervlinne noticed that the distrustful expression on Treguard's face was still there.  
  
* * *  
  
By using the rope, which was tethered to the rocks below the cave- mouth, Treguard, Majida and Dervlinne were able to scale back down the hillside both quickly and safely. Dervlinne was quieter than ever on the way down, and once they'd reached ground level she just avoided everyone's eyes, clearly shaken and agitated by Treguard's words.  
"Yes," said Treguard to Bumptious, "it looks like a tunnel way into the Marblehead dungeon." Bumptious nodded and gave the thumbs-up, smiling broadly. "The whole area looks deserted, now. Grimaldine must have left, so we shouldn't face too much opposition when we go in. Unfortunately, we can't take the horse up that hill, so we'll have to leave him down here..."  
Rod was gazing up at the forbidding castle in its fearsome shroud of darkness, and the dauntingly steep hill that they needed to climb to reach it. On the face of it, he seemed rather pleased by this news.  
"Any volunteers to stay behind and look after him?"  
Dervlinne raised her arm. "I will stay behind and guard the supplies, honoured one," she offered stiffly.  
"I think not," answered Treguard, "I'd prefer to keep an eye on you."  
Dervlinne turned on him, now genuinely angered. "You do not trust me, Dungeon Master?"  
"Frankly, no. Anyone el-...?"  
"Why not?" demanded Dervlinne. "I have not betrayed you..."  
"I only have your word for that, she-sprite," growled Treguard. "You serve Arawn, and it wouldn't surprise me if he had given you some hidden instruction to betray me when I am at my most vulnerable. No, I won't give you the chance to steal our horse and supplies and abandon us. You're coming with me."  
"I have served you obediently, Dungeon Master," protested the elf. "I..."  
"I wouldn't say 'obediently', Dervlinne. Majida, would you like to stay behind?"  
Majida bristled. "Me? Stay with thees fleabag?" She gestured at Rod contemptuously. "He smell, and he always make awful snort-snort noise when he eat! I not staying here." She crossed her arms, turned her nose up to the horse, and adopted the pose of one who would not be argued with.  
Bumptious put his hands on his hips and started jabbering defiantly.  
Dervlinne translated. "He says he cannot stay behind, honoured one, he has mining to do."  
Treguard nodded. "Majida, you're staying here." Majida's response to this was as loud as it was inadmissable in a family-story. Treguard simply ignored her. "You're staying here," he repeated. Majida carried on grumbling, but no one wanted to listen.  
Bumptious fetched some tools from the wagon and stuffed them into a sack, which he threw over his shoulder. "Lesssclim!!" he cried enthusiastically.  
"He says 'Let's climb'," Dervlinne translated.  
"Yes, I got that," said Treguard. He frowned. Something else was bothering him now, but he couldn't work out what it was. Something seemed out of place, something that wasn't anything to do with Dervlinne this time. He shrugged. It was probably just that he was half-expecting Marblehead to be a hive of Celtic activity when they found it. The dark emptiness of the fortress seemed like an anti-climax.  
They began to climb the rope back to the cave-mouth, first Treguard, then Dervlinne, and then Bumptious. Progress was smooth and easy with the rope to support them and it took just moments for them to reach the cave. They climbed up over the last few rocks and stood at the cave entrance. They peered into almost total blackness. Bumptious pulled out a lantern, lit it, and shone it into the tunnel. It lit up the walls a small distance in, but the light was soon swallowed up in darkness just a little further along. What they could see of the tunnel was smooth, artificial.  
Bumptious quietly babbled something.  
"According to Bumptious, these are Dwarf Tunnels, Dungeon Master," explained Dervlinne.  
"Good!" exclaimed Treguard, "If this tunnel's artificial then it must be a path into the Marblehead dungeon." Bumptious nodded in agreement.  
With the dungeons currently out of phase, there would be little under the hill other than the bare rocks and soils that the dungeon was trying to reform itself with. But it could still be a dangerous place, even at times like these. "We have to watch our step in there. Most of the dungeon will have disintegrated, but there'll still be a few remnants of what was there before. Oh, and remember to avoid anything that gives off a bright light. They'll be dungeon-fragments that are in the process of reforming. Make any contact with them and you'll be absorbed into them."  
Bumptious nodded again, this time impatiently - after what he'd been through, he was the last person who needed a lecture on the dangers of journeying through Marblehead. Dervlinne merely sniffed. There was little new that an elf, even one as young as three thousand, could learn from a mere mortal.  
Treguard took the lantern from Bumptious, then lowered his head and moved forward into the tunnel. Its walls and floor were a little slippery and broken in places, but it seemed generally safe and manageable.  
Bumptious jabbered something to Dervlinne as she started to follow. He backed away from the cave-mouth and started collecting large stones from thereabouts.  
Dervlinne called after Treguard who was still pushing further ahead. "Honoured one, Bumptious is concerned that the tunnel may be unsafe. He is collecting some stones to bolster the roof."  
Treguard turned and looked back. "Sounds a bit futile," he grunted.  
"He believes it will help," Dervlinne answered coldly.  
Treguard shrugged and carried on down the tunnel. "Well he's the expert. If he thinks it's worth it, let him. But tell him to hurry up."  
Dervlinne relayed the instruction and continued following.  
  
* * *  
  
Fear stared into the techno-magic mirror in agitation. The burden of his own expectation was now weighing on him, his nerves jangling like the great bells of Marblehead. The nearer one comes to one's ambition, the greater the terror for there is so much more to be lost through one's own mistakes. He couldn't afford them now, for in allowing Treguard into his own realm, Fear had personally upped the stakes to a higher level than ever before.  
"Your Lord-nessss, your great-nessss, your illusssss-striousss- nessss, your..."  
"You can stuff the pleasantries where the frogs don't dare to hop, Lissard!" snapped Fear. "Just hurry up and report."  
"The time is upon ussss!" cried Lissard, "Treguard has entered the dungeon-nessss through the Outer Cavernssss - precissss-ely as you planned, Lord-nessss."  
Fear allowed just a brief hint of relief to flood through him. "Excellent, Lissard. It will take just a few moments, and then..." he clenched a fist, "...Treguard is finished!"  
  
* * *  
  
Treguard had already reached the end of the long narrow tunnel before Dervlinne could catch up with him - and when she did, her response to what she found was the same as his had been, a gasp of shock. They had stepped out onto a very long, very broad ledge overlooking a vast cavern. The cave was immense, the size of Marblehead several times over. It loomed above their heads over a hundred feet, and stretched twice the distance below.  
And the cavern was shining clear as day. In the distance of the cavern's furthest reaches they could see a vast column of water falling from crags in the rock-face to a deep recess in the floor over a hundred feet below. The water formed a wide flowing river that hungrily chewed its way into the earth far, far below their feet.  
There was no visible source of light, there had been no hint of illumination even as they had hauled themselves through the tunnel, and yet this enormous, this unimaginably vast cavern was lit like an infant star.  
"This is not possible!" cried the Saxon Lord. "Certainly the hill was large and steep, but it's nowhere near large enough to contain such a cave." He pointed upwards. "How can the roof be so high? From what I saw when we entered the tunnel, even the castle would be enclosed in here." He looked dazzled as he gazed upon the expanse of rocks, almost hypnotised by the dancing light that shone from them into his eyes. "And where's the light coming from? That's not the light of the dungeon re-integrating."  
Dervlinne sniffed the air fearfully. "There is the reek of sorcery surrounding this place, honoured Dungeon Master."  
Treguard nodded, both nerves and excitement suddenly touching his heart with their icy fingers. If it was sorcery that let this cave exist in a place where it evidently could never be - that was the power of the Gruagach himself. It was the power that allowed the accursed Dungeon to reshape itself, to rebuild itself, to grow, to become one with so many other places which by now spanned most of England. That power was present here. And it was complete.  
"Could it be?" he dared let himself wonder. Could it be that the time at last was here? Could the dungeon have finally reformed itself? Could it be that the next Age of Adventure, the one he had so long waited for, the one he had craved seeing with a heavy and, at times broken, heart had already begun?  
He briefly let himself feel the old surge of hope, the gentle tingle of boyish anticipation that he'd always experienced whenever the Greater Game was about to begin. At last! After all these years he would have his dungeoneers back, he would be able to fight the Opposition on an even footing again, he would be part of the adventure again rather than the victim of it. He would be Dungeon Master once more.  
The problem was that he, Dervlinne and Bumptious were inside the dungeon right now. Not a healthy time or place to celebrate.  
"It's the dungeon, Dervlinne," Treguard whispered gently. "I think the time is here. The dungeon has awoken, it's alive again!"  
Dervlinne nodded, trying to look calm about the revelation, when in fact it was very clear that it terrified her. "Hadn't we best leave then, honoured one?"  
Treguard was about to answer in the affirmative when they heard an ominous sound from the tunnel behind them. They turned and saw Bumptious scrambling out of the tunnel on all fours in a mad rush of panic.  
"Movmov-outerwa-gimmegooooooOOOOOOOO...!!!!!!!!!" he explained, shoving Treguard off his feet - dangerously close to the edge indeed - his own momentum almost taking himself over the rim.  
Behind him the tunnel demonstrated why Bumptious was in such a flap - it collapsed with a loud and disheartening crumbling noise. All three threw themselves flat on the ledge, face down, covering crown, nose and mouth as the cracking and crumbling and tumbling and splitting carried on for over thirty seconds before finally coming to rest in a hideous plume of dust. The echoes of the cave-in carried on reverberating around the cavern for over three minutes before fading out.  
Only then, as silence settled in once more, did the three companions dare to look up and, pale-faced, see the ruinous mass of rocks and debris that now thoroughly barred their only exit.  
Treguard puffed out his cheeks several times before he could bring himself to speak. He then decided not to because whatever it was he was going to say, he didn't trust himself to say it without polluting it with expletives.  
He then decided he didn't give a damn whether or not he polluted his grammar.  
"What the bloody hell have you DONE?!" he didn't quite say, but it was something fairly similar.  
Bumptious looked shocked to hear such language from a distinguished and noble Lord of the realm, especially so many centuries before such words had even been invented. He jabbered the hurried and clearly rather embarrassed answer that he had tried to reinforce the roof by jamming stones into weakened stress points in the rock, and in so doing had in fact caused hidden cracks to split open completely and the roof fell in, and he was deeply sorry for making such an elementary mistake, especially after his experiences here last time, and which would have been avoided of course if he had simply stuck rigidly by guideline 14b, Section 78f, Paragraph 11 of the manual.  
Treguard didn't get this last bit, because Dervlinne judged, correctly, that it wasn't worth the bother of translating it. Treguard merely shook his head and uttered the briefest, bleakest of chortles. In all his many years as an adventurer, he couldn't remember ever bearing witness to or ever being part of a team as pathetically ill-suited to one another's company as this one. Everyone seemed to have some issue with at least one of the others, there was little experience or talent for the arduous tasks of questing beyond his own, Treguard himself was old and tired, Bumptious was old and in battered shape, even the horse was bulshy and uncooperative. And now they'd managed to seal themselves inside the dungeon of Marblehead.  
Treguard was not on the verge of saying out loud that things could not possibly have got any worse, experience had taught him as it had taught so many others before that such a statement was just inviting trouble.  
But he might just as well have said it anyway because it was at this point that a soft moan met their ears. They looked up and saw emerging from the tangled mass of rocks of the fallen tunnel a chilling apparition. It appeared as nothing more than a large and discoloured human skull, chattering and sighing despairingly as it floated towards them.  
"Ohboogblassit chamacorrahou?" asked Bumptious.  
Treguard quickly pulled himself to his feet. "A fallen dungeoneer is haunting here. We have to find a way out of this cavern. Move!" He grabbed hold of Bumptious' arm and hauled him upright. Bumptious put his hand to his head, swaying dizzily for a moment. Treguard and Dervlinne had already retreated some way along the ledge by the time Bumptious got his act together. He held his hood with one hand to keep it from falling off, then turned and ran after his two companions, the skull ghost not far behind.  
The ledge led straight to one of the immense cave walls. As he ran Treguard constantly checked over the side to see if there was anything below that they could drop onto, but he could see nothing except a very long drop to the cavern floor each time. All too soon he and Dervlinne reached the wall. Knowing the dungeon's tendency to hide its paths, they immediately started examining it closely to see if they could find any doors hidden in the smooth flat rock.  
"We appear to have taken a wrong turning, honoured one," suggested Dervlinne, her fear now very audible.  
Treguard ignored her, and prodded the wall, trying to find anything, a seam, a fissure of some kind, anything that might be levered.  
Bumptious finally caught up with them, gibbering hectically at them.  
"Stop panicking!" snarled Treguard, but Bumptious continued wittering fearfully, and pointed over his shoulder. Dervlinne followed his gaze. The ghost was almost upon them, its moan growing in intensity as it sniffed a huge feast of life force ahead.  
"Dungeon Master!" cried Dervlinne, "If we are to do something, it must be now!"  
Suddenly Treguard thought, "What am I doing?" He turned around confidently, drew Morpheus and held it up in full view of the ghost. "You presume to threaten me, little death-spawn? You attack the Master of the Dungeon himself, the very Dungeon that sustains this mockery of a second life you lead. Dare to attack me and your existence is forfeit. BEGONE!"  
The ghost stopped approaching and hovered in front of them for a long moment, as if pondering these words. Treguard kept the sword held up, his intense, saturnine gaze never wavering from the wretched spirit. For some reason Treguard suddenly didn't feel as confident as he was expecting to. The ghost just hovered there. It was making no further attempt to attack, but then it didn't appear to be in any hurry to leave either, it just hovered there, just staring at them.  
Bumptious and Dervlinne seemed transfixed by the ghost, but suddenly the elf looked past to the wall next to it.  
"Honoured one," she whispered to Treguard. "Look on the wall next to the ghost."  
Treguard stared blankly where she was indicating. He shrugged. "I see nothing." He turned his attention back to the ghost, which was still just floating there, watching them intently.  
"No Dungeon Master," insisted Dervlinne. "Look again."  
Treguard scowled, and did as he was asked. For just a fleeting moment he got the vague flickering impression of seeing some kind of shape or outline in the wall, but no, it was quickly gone. The ghost seemed to waver a little in the air in front of him, so Treguard waved the sword warningly. "Stop wasting my time, Dervlinne. What am I supposed to be looking for?"  
Dervlinne took a couple of very slight, very quiet sidesteps so that she could manoeuver past the ghost cleanly.  
"What are you doing?" Treguard growled angrily.  
"Trust me, Dungeon Master," Dervlinne implored him quietly, and she started to inch forward.  
Treguard knew from bitter experience that the last thing he was going to do was trust an elf of Anwin Wood just because of her own hardly- disinterested say-so. He turned and held the point of Morpheus' blade to her back. "Stand still, she-sprite! I'm not going to let you desert us."  
Dervlinne turned, distraught. "I'm not...!"  
These sudden movements were enough to break the ghost's shackles. With a howl as cold and loud as a gale from the North, it lurched forward to attack its prey. Treguard swiftly returned Morpheus to its defensive position, but this time the ghost did not hesitate. It simply swooped down, evaded the sword with an ease bordering on the contemptuous, and started snapping at Treguard's arms and legs with its insubstantial teeth.  
The chill Treguard felt as the teeth of the ghost bit into him could scarcely be comprehended, let alone described. The problem was that he felt no physical injury whatsoever, but somehow he still felt the most perplexing agony, as though the ghost had simply by-passed his flesh and bit a large chunk out of his soul. Even Treguard couldn't understand the pain, the chill, and he was the one enduring it.  
Dervlinne saw all this and quickly turned and ran to the point on the wall she was looking for. The wall here was fairly smooth, but a small patch of rock some way above her head was protruding significantly. It was very easy for mortal eyes to miss it, but for an elf it was just clear enough. It was a coherent shape, a symbol - the symbol of a bridge. She jumped and reached out for the patch of rock. Her fingers brushed it, but no more than that. She jumped again, stretching and straining, and this time slapped her palm firmly against the symbol. As she did so, it began to withdraw slowly into the rock-face.  
Bumptious had pulled out a small pickaxe from his sack and was waving it menacingly at the ghost, trying to draw the creature away from Treguard. Suddenly though, the ghost drew back in confusion. Treguard and Bumptious were knocked from their feet as a furious grinding rumble violently shook the whole ledge. Dervlinne threw herself flat against the ground as the patch of rock finished withdrawing into the wall.  
Then from a few feet below her, out of the rock of the ledge, a long slender stone column slowly began to extend out into the cave, stretching out all the way across the vast expanse towards the opposite wall in the far distance.  
Even though the ground was still shaking violently, and the column was less than halfway across the gap, Treguard saw the opportunity in the ghost's confusion, and he wasn't going to miss it. He pulled himself and Bumptious to their feet and together they scampered to the bridge. It was not very broad, and it was several feet below the lip of the ledge, so it took a conscious effort on their part to drop onto it for fear of tumbling over the edge to a messy death. Once they landed though they quickly darted forward along the narrow bridge, joined by Dervlinne who by now had also recovered, and did not particularly share the irrational mortal phobia about heights.  
Sadly, the ghost's confusion had by now faded as well, and it was in pursuit again.  
Looking ahead, Treguard could see that the bridge was heading for another large tunnel in the opposite wall. With the bridge currently only being supported at one end, they were getting the uneasy feeling of the bridge tottering slightly under their weight, but there was no time to worry about that with the ghost closing in again.  
The problem was it was such a long way across the chasm, and the bridge was unfolding so slowly. The bridge was little more than halfway across, and already they were near the edge. The ghost wasn't far behind them.  
It was quickly very clear that they weren't going to make it, the ghost would catch up with them before they got anywhere near the other side.  
Treguard, Bumptious and Dervlinne looked around desperately for some other escape route. Bumptious spotted it.  
"Dowdowdoewego!" he cried, pointing over the edge of the bridge. Treguard and Dervlinne looked at him in disbelief. "Looook!" he gestured.  
They looked over the edge and saw what he was indicating. The underground river was just ahead running along the cavern floor towards a gap in the base of one of the mighty walls. "Are you mad?" cried Treguard. "It must a drop of a hundred metres...!"  
Bumptious gestured toward the ghost, which was practically on top of them, and then gave Treguard a look that said, "You got a better idea?"  
Treguard sighed, and raised Morpheus to hinder the ghost long enough for them to make the jump. The ghost pulled back slightly as the magical blade cut at it. Bumptious and Dervlinne meanwhile crouched on the edge of the bridge, waiting for the right moment. The bright glowing rock made the water of the river shine a deep vivid blue that couldn't be fully appreciated at this altitude. From here the river looked like a thin artery below the skin of the cave, a tiny narrow flow of water. Judging the timing of the jump would not be easy, even for an elf...  
"NOW!" Dervlinne suddenly cried, and with a somersault faster than the eye could follow, propelled herself over the edge. With rather less grace or poise, Bumptious held his nose and leapt after her, belly first. Treguard spun on his heel, trusted his luck and stepped over the edge.  
The ghost growled in surprise and anger as its prey suddenly disappeared.  
It was a surprisingly-happy journey down, because it was clear from the first moment that Dervlinne with her sharp elfin vision had managed to get her timing spot on, and they were all not just going to land in the river, but actually land right in the centre, where it was presumably deepest. Hopefully that meant deep enough...  
Dervlinne manoeuvered several times as she fell until she was in the optimum diving position to pierce the water. She plunged into the depths headfirst, broke into a graceful swim, swooping up to break the surface, all in a single movement.  
Bumptious just belly-flopped into the water about twenty metres upstream of her, and the inevitably-large deluge of water showered up around him as if a depth charge had hit it.  
Treguard used his cloak on the way down to slow his descent slightly, and with that he was able to manoeuver in mid-air enough to get into an upright position and break the water with the tips of his feet and disappear below the surface with some measure of control.  
The water was deep, but the tide was still unnaturally fast, and it was an effort for Treguard both to break the surface and to get to the shore. With every slow, battling stroke, he moved inch-by-inch nearer to safety. He was hurtling down-river towards the tunnel rather more quickly than he'd have liked but he had no time to worry about that. He established a rhythm, take a breath, head down, three strokes, head up, take a breath... and soon was hauling himself up onto the riverbank. He slumped on the hard craggy ground, heaving for breath, feeling old and inadequate.  
He slowly got onto his hands and knees and looked up-river, surprised to see Bumptious helping Dervlinne out of the water. Treguard had rather expected it to be the other way around, and he was surprised Bumptious was so strong in the water. Well, no argument, hidden talents are every bit as useful as the obvious ones.  
Treguard got to his feet slowly, his joints sore and exhausted from the exertions of more than a week, exertions that showed little sign of coming to an end any time soon. He had no idea how they were going to get out of here, no way of contacting Majida to ask for help. What a mess. He shrugged his shoulders sadly and headed over to join Dervlinne and Bumptious who were now sat in a heap on the riverbank, looking bedraggled.  
Now that he was on the floor of the cave, Treguard had an even clearer indication of just how immense this place was. He looked up, saw the bridge he had just leapt from coming to rest spanning the entire chasm, and far beyond it the cavern roof, so distant that it looked like a dark skyline above a small world. His dungeon had created this, he realised in quiet wonderment. This was but one more example of its incredible power, it had created this humbling colossus of a place. This was once a separate a dungeon, a separate realm, but now it was effectively one with his own, and this was what it could create.  
What was most remarkable about this lair was not its capacity to surprise and expose the weaknesses of any who dared to challenge it. No it was that it still had the capacity, even after all these years, to surprise and bewilder its own Master. Not for the first time in his life, Treguard was forced to consider whether he really he was entitled to call himself such a thing, whether any mortal was truly worthy to Master and rule this dungeon.  
Treguard reached Dervlinne and Bumptious just as they were getting to their feet and readying themselves to set off again. All three of them were tired, and soaked to the bone, but other than that, they were largely unscathed from the plummet.  
"I'd er..." Treguard harrumphed reluctantly, "I'd like to apologise to you for my poor manners, Dervlinne. You did well finding that bridge mechanism, and my suspicions of you were unworthy."  
Dervlinne shrugged. "It is forgotten, honoured one," she answered, although it certainly didn't sound like she had forgotten, nor even forgiven.  
Bumptious had a broad grin on his face. He was, basically, being smug. It was his idea to jump off the bridge into the river and it had worked. He was clever, he was the brains of the outfit, and he'd even managed it without firstly getting confirmation in writing from Treguard and Dervlinne that they each shared joint-responsibility for anything bad that happened to them on the way down. Unfortunately, Bumptious had discovered that his report-book had been ruined by the water, but in the end, heavy price though it was, it was one he had been prepared to pay.  
He casually gestured to the left and muttered something to Treguard in a superior manner.  
Dervlinne, as ever, was ready to translate. "He says that he has seen a flight of stairs leading down below the cavern floor. He suggests that we should follow them, and that because it is his suggestion, it is likely to be the correct course of action, as our escape from the ghost demonstrates."  
Treguard raised an eyebrow and nodded. "Very well, master strategist. Show me."  
Bumptious swaggered arrogantly past Treguard and led them to a large recess in the ground. Treguard leaned forward and peered inside. It was deep, it was dark. There were no steps to speak of. He looked at Bumptious who grinned in embarrassment and muttered something else.  
"'Well, maybe not steps as such'," translated Dervlinne, glowering at Bumptious, "'but it does lead down.'"  
"I'm not sure I like the look of..." began Treguard, but his voice tailed off as he heard a familiar moaning sound from above. They all looked up and saw the dreaded shape of the skull ghost floating down towards them, still some way off but descending fast. "...Of that ghost," Treguard finished. "Let's go." Treguard gritted his teeth, and for the second time in minutes, took the plunge again. He, Dervlinne and Bumptious dropped into the darkness, which turned out to be a portal, and they were whisked deeper into the dungeon.  
  
* * *  
  
On the other side of the portal, they dropped to the floor in a square-shaped chamber. They were not in a cavern this time, but a small courtyard. At the centre of it was a very broad trapdoor, made of very solid oak. There was one exit at the other side of the room and the chamber was lit on all sides by flame torches.  
They picked themselves up, dusted themselves down and looked about themselves.  
"Not much of a challenge here," said Dervlinne.  
Treguard nodded. "I suggest that as long as we avoid stepping on the trapdoor, we should be fine."  
Bumptious also nodded so they stepped around the side of the room and walked on, carefully staying away from the trapdoor. That was the big mistake. Bumptious suddenly jumped backwards just as Treguard and Dervlinne were making their fifth steps. Bumptious watched impassively as his companions stepped on a stone that was, in fact, just thin air, and fell through it to land painfully at the bottom of a dank, unlit shaft.  
  
(How can the numbers four, six, eighty and one hundred be used together, without the use of any other numbers, to make exactly nine?  
  
How can a pocket with two large holes in it be safe to hold a gold coin?  
  
Adam was the first man, Eve was the first woman. Who was the first Olympic athlete?)  
  
To be concluded... 


	3. Theatre Of Dreams Part 3

THEATRE OF DREAMS  
PART III  
  
'In the primal fires of the seventh Earth, Fear was forged as chaos given form in nature. It took a sinister presence, capable of coaxing good men into acts of evil, capable of coaxing sane men into acts of madness. Fear was irrepressible. It walked the infant fields and mountains of the world, turning friend against friend, brother against sister, father against child. It would not rest until it held the hearts and minds of all people in its icy hand. Only its sworn foe, the great Dream, Courage, could stand against Fear, stare it down and even banish it.  
  
'They did battle countless times for many centuries, Courage confronting Fear, a War that raged like fire across its luckless battleground - the hearts of all Mankind. Courage was forever at a perverse disadvantage in this terrible War, for without the onus of overcoming Fear, Courage could not exist, it was all it lived to do. But Fear was its own weakness, where Courage had strength, an inner harmony that Fear could not match. So defeat for Courage was rare. But every time Courage stood victorious, all it could do was force its cursed enemy further back, to retreat further into the unknown. Courage could not destroy Fear without destroying Courage's own purpose of being. This bitter irony was lost on neither.  
  
'So Fear's ambition would never end, its cause would never cease, until the day it destroyed Courage. On that day, the day when the last of the Brave falls, the world shall weep, for 'twill be a day of cold darkness when Evil rises to rule the World as never it has been ruled before...'  
- The Last Prophecy of Toldriss the Enchanter, 717 AD.  
  
("How can the numbers four, six, eighty and one hundred be used together, without the use of any other numbers, to make exactly nine?"  
  
Add the one hundred to the eighty. Turn the four and the six into Roman numerals i.e. IV and VI. Now, twist the VI through one hundred and eighty degrees and paste it to the underside of the IV. The result is IX, the Roman numeral for nine.  
  
"How can a pocket with two large holes in it be safe to hold a gold coin?"  
  
Simple. The first hole is the entrance to the pocket. Then if the second hole is part of the coin itself, rather than part of the pocket lining, the coin can be put in the pocket reasonably securely, and the hole is still in the pocket.  
  
"Adam was the first man, Eve was the first woman. Who was the first Olympic athlete?"  
  
Pheidippides. Not Marathon.)  
  
When at last Treguard awoke in relative darkness, he felt cold. He couldn't say how long he had been unconscious but he knew that he was in a small cell. The floor was nothing but sharp granite, without even a few blades of straw to soften it. There was a thin light coming through the bars of the cell door, but inside it was damp, cold and dark.  
Then he realised that there was someone standing on the other side of the door, someone smiling, gloating, triumphant. Treguard slowly sat up and allowed his eyes to adjust to the gloom. Through the bars he saw Lord Fear in all his skeletal glory.  
"Dearie me, Treguard, me ol' goat," he smirked. "And here's you a seasoned veteran? A practiced adventurer of many years' experience?" He shook his bony head. "You made my whole plan pathetically easy to pull off, you know - you blundered straight into every trap I laid for you. You even fell for the old fake trapdoor trick. I knew you would of course, but I'm still disappointed."  
"Fear," murmured Treguard, gently rubbing the back of his neck, which was stiff from lying in the same position for too long. "I knew that story about Grimaldine was too good to be true."  
"Of course it was," nodded Fear. "You fell for that, you believed the agent I planted in your team was your friend, you believed that the hole in the cave floor was the safe path even though there were no stairs..." Fear let out a snort of derision. "You really do make things too easy for us, don't you, Treguard? Whatever made you a great warrior in the past, you don't have any of it now."  
Treguard was unable to take in most of what Fear was saying, his head felt dull and swimmy. He couldn't say how far he and Dervlinne had fallen when they'd stepped onto the fake flagstones in the trapdoor chamber, but from the sore aches he was now experiencing all over his head and torso, he reckoned it must have been a good twenty five feet onto a very hard surface.  
He looked up at Fear meaningfully. "What have you done with Dervlinne and Bumptious?" he demanded groggily.  
Fear looked at him thoughtfully for a moment. "Let us instead discuss terms."  
"Terms?"  
"The terms of your survival of course."  
"You mean I have some say in the matter?"  
"Oh yes," said Fear. "Not as much as I do of course, but some. You see, though it may surprise you, I don't necessarily have to kill you."  
"Obviously," snorted Treguard. "If you had to, I wouldn't be alive now."  
"Obviously," agreed Fear.  
"So, what exactly is it you want, you malodorous old bone-bag?" demanded Treguard with a commendable display of superior indifference.  
Fear's parched-white face twisted into a look of fury. "You dare insult me in your position, you ancient..."  
"Dare?" sneered Treguard defiantly. "You were about to impose terms, Fear. That means you want something from me. If you kill me you won't get anything so I can say what I like to you. There's no great daring in that."  
Fear favoured his archenemy with a smile of cold anger and nodded. "Very well, Treguard, let's get to the guts of the matter shall we? I want Knightmare."  
Treguard looked up at him in astonishment. "You want what?"  
  
Majida was frantic by now. She and Rod had been waiting at the foot of the hill for well over four hours in, by now, near pitch-blackness, and she was certain something had gone badly wrong. In the appalling light she hadn't able to see the cause, but she could have sworn that, shortly after Bumptious had disappeared into the tunnel, there had been a vague rumble, like the distant sound of rocks folding and collapsing against each other. She was under strict instructions to keep watch on the horse though, so she had decided against investigating, but now she was sure that she'd chosen a bad time to start doing as she was told.  
She gave Rod a warning look to stay put, then started hauling her way along the rope up the grease-addled hill. Climbing here had been a difficult enough task in twilight. Now it was so dark she could scarcely make out the turf of the slope right in front of her, and was constantly nervy about the danger of slipping or stumbling on some unseen impediment in her path. The surface of the hill was at least rough enough to provide plenty of footholds, while still smooth enough to keep obstacles to a minimum, but it was still very slow-going, largely due to her hopeless lack of experience in this sort of activity.  
In fact, she was gradually becoming astonished at how long it was taking her to climb this time. She was sure she hadn't had to travel nearly this far on the way down from the cave entrance. She climbed and she climbed and she... stopped.  
She was at the top of the rope. At the top of the rope was Dervlinne's dagger that Treguard had used to fasten it to the cave wall. But the cave wall wasn't here. The dagger was now driven into some large nondescript piece of rock in the middle of the hill. She couldn't see the cave anywhere nearby in such poor visibility.  
Majida was perplexed at first, but she then realised that someone must have moved the dagger along to another point further along the hillside, and in the terrible light she hadn't seen it happening. But why would anyone do that?  
There were only three possible answers that Majida could think of, and she didn't like any of them.  
One: Treguard, mindful of Majida's objections to being left behind to guard a grumpy horse, and knowing the trouble she was having climbing the hill without assistance, had deliberately repositioned the rope so that she couldn't follow him into the tunnel.  
Two: Dervlinne had repositioned the dagger to spite Treguard for confiscating it from her in the first place.  
Three: Someone else they didn't know about had repositioned it to keep her from following in the event of the others running into trouble inside the tunnel.  
The third possibility seemed the most likely, but also the most worrying, as the other two were merely petty annoyances. If there was somebody else here who was sabotaging the operation, then there was real trouble in store. She scowled in outrage when she realised that there was only one man/monster/person/thingummy who could be responsible.  
"Fear," she spat. "Dees whole thing, ee's all a trap."  
Suddenly an even more terrible thought struck her. If Fear was still in Marblehead, Treguard was in trouble. Big trouble. She sailed back down the rope as fast as she could, too preoccupied with her misgivings to notice that this climbing-business was actually much easier when she just got on with it. She was back on the ground in under a minute.  
She scampered back over to the wagon and pulled out a spare torch. She lit it with a click of her fingers, shot Rod another restraining glare, and returned to the foot of the hill. She shone the torch up the slope at all angles and soon found where the tunnel was. She scowled at her own inattentiveness. It was nowhere near the position of the dagger now, how could she have missed it happening? She then looked more closely and allowed a quiet moan of unhappiness to escape her lips. Even at this distance and in this terrible light, she could see that the tunnel entrance was crammed with fallen rocks. That was what the rumbling noise had been - the tunnel had caved in! What if the others were still in the tunnel when it happened? What if they weren't? Either way they were trapped underground. Worse, she'd be left out here in the cold and the dark for the rest of her days with nothing for company but a horse with bad breath?  
Majida looked at Rod again. "Dees all your fault," she sniffed. "Don' ask me why, I jus' know eet all your fault."  
  
Dervlinne was experiencing dark magical neural anterior lobal dysfunction inducing confused and restricted motor-reflex responses of the cerebral-cortex. Or, as the ignorant mortals would put it, she was dizzy.  
Wherever she was, it was dark, irredeemably dark almost. Even to her keen elfin senses she could see not the slightest speck of light. She must have been unconscious for some while, yet she seemed to be experiencing the sensation of being upright, and she felt an excruciating strain in her shoulders. After a while, she realised that this was because her arms were in chains. She'd been manacled upright, her arms above her head, chained to the ceiling.  
She shifted her feet backward to try and feel for the wall she was presumably tied to, and found that she wasn't. She moved her feet downwards and felt for the floor instead, and found that that was out of reach. She'd been left dangling off the floor for hours in chains, no wonder her shoulders were in such agony.  
She shuffled her shoulders slightly, just to shift their position a little and place the strain on another part of her arms, just for a moment.  
"No, don't sssstruggle-nesssss," hissed a sudden voice from the dark. "Your wrists-nessss will look ssso much lessss decorative with all the skin- nessss torn off, and with the blood ssseeping-nessss down your armssss."  
Dervlinne looked around sharply, a thoroughly futile gesture. "Who said that?" she demanded, making a creditable effort to hide her nerves.  
"My name is Liss-ssard," answered the voice. "And you, if I my sssay- nessss, look good enough to eat."  
If Dervlinne's unseen heckler was trying to scare her, it was a wasted effort - her nerves were already jangling unbearably. "Where are you?" she tried.  
"Behind you," replied Lissard.  
She tried to turn and look in the direction of the voice, but still she could see nothing. She also began to notice another unpleasant sensation against the temples of her head, a restraining, turbulent effect across the front of her eyes.  
"There issss no point in trying to ssssee what you cannot," said Lissard hoarsely.  
"Why is it so dark in here?" complained Dervlinne, "I can see nothing at all."  
"It'sss not very dark-nesss, elfin," answered Lissard. "You are blindfolded, that'sss all."  
"Why?"  
"For your own benefit, elfin."  
"My benefit?" scoffed Dervlinne. "Release my eyes."  
There was a short silence, as though her captor were weighing up the request.  
"You wouldn't thank me for it," he said finally.  
Dervlinne started struggling uncomfortably again. Like many elves, she suffered from a strange form of claustrophobia, and it could kick in under any form of physical restraint. She was beginning to feel slightly ill by the obstruction to her vision. "You think I'm grateful for being chained up like this, lizard?"  
"Liss-ssard," the Atlantean corrected her, a little haughtily.  
"Let me see!" Dervlinne near-shrieked. She was no longer able to swallow her anxiety.  
"You're ssss-sure that you want me to?"  
Dervlinne carried on wriggling.  
"Very well," hissed Lissard. "On your own head-nessss be it!"  
There was a shuffling behind Dervlinne and she felt the pressure against her temples and eyes subside. Her eyes were sore from being blindfolded, and it took a while for them to focus on the new intrusion of light. She wasn't pleased when it did.  
The first thing she noticed was that it was fairly dark in here, but not oppressively so. The second thing she noticed was that as she thought, she was indeed hanging by a pair of fairly short chains from the ceiling. The third thing she noticed was that the chamber had no floor. Well, that was to say, she assumed it probably did have a floor, it was just that she couldn't see it from where she was hanging, as it must have been at least seven hundred feet below her.  
Lissard, who was cheerfully perched on a broad ledge just behind her and right below the cavern ceiling, had been reflecting on how much effort it had been carrying the she-sprite all the way down to Level Three and trying to secure her to the ceiling of the Cavern of Descendants.  
To his delight, he found that now, as the elf took in the sheer enormity of open space between her feet and solid ground, her consequent scream of terror was worth the effort on its own.  
  
Treguard was at a genuine loss. Lord Fear had always been an adversary who would play for keeps - if a game's worth winning after all, you might as well get rewarded for it - but for certain he was never one to set his sights ridiculously high. The prizes he aimed for were always realistic ones, well within his reach. If there was one thing Treguard would say for Lord Fear, and it would only ever be one, it was that he did have a certain measured patience. He was always prepared to build his power and authority slowly, carefully, he was always prepared to wait for the right moment to move for what he wanted, and so to reap the rewards afterwards.  
Now Treguard faced a demand that appeared, on the face of it, completely preposterous. Even with Treguard in captivity, how could Fear possibly demand the keys to Dunshelm itself?  
"Knightmare Castle?" repeated Fear. "You know, the place you've lived in for the last fifteen years or so? The place you were born in, all those many, many, many, many years ago?" The insult was not lost on Treguard of course, but he offered no response, so Fear decided to try another one that he knew would cut a little deeper. "The place where Baron Vestan murdered your entire family?"  
This time Treguard reacted just enough for his face to redden a little, for his teeth to become clenched, and for the pupils of his eyes to become narrowed with quiet anger. Other than that he showed commendable restraint, but Fear still saw that he was already getting to him.  
"Y'know Treguard," continued Fear, "I do so wish I'd been there that day. It would have been such fun to watch all those proud little Anglo- Saxons getting chopped to pieces on the battlements of your castle by Brittany's mercenaries." He saw that Treguard was struggling to keep the anger from his face. Good. "All that blood. All those bones, all those bodies... It would've been just..."  
Treguard snarled, leapt to his feet and hurled himself wildly at the bars of his cell. This led to a surprise. It was really just an angry gesture on his part, and one that he was cursing himself for even as he did it. It would surely be futile hurling his aging body at the bars, merely giving Fear more room for amusement.  
Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately - he couldn't be sure yet - when he should have collided with the bars he didn't. He simply carried on going, stumbled as his momentum carried him to where it logically could not have done, and fell flat on his face.  
Treguard spun back to his feet in astonishment, but before he could investigate what had happened to the bars, Fear was standing face to face with him, a look of cynical amusement on his chalk-white features.  
"Dear oh dear, so impetuous," he noted. "You should learn to compose yourself a bit, Treguard. I mean throwing yourself at the cell door like that? Imagine what could have happened if it were real. You might've broken it."  
Treguard looked past Fear to the cell and saw that it was no longer there - there was just a single dark empty space. He blinked in confusion.  
"You look surprised, Treguard," smirked Fear. "But surely you know the dungeon better than anyone. The old adage, I mean. You know, that nothing here is real?"  
Treguard looked at him uncertainly. That old saying wasn't literally true. It was true in so far as whatever happened within the Dungeon had little direct meaning outside - thus when dungeoneers from another time died while on the path they could live on elsewhere. But to say that nothing here was real at all would be a gross exaggeration, and indirectly whatever happened here had a very real bearing on the ways of Norman England.  
"Still where was I?" continued Fear. "Oh yes. I was particularly amused by the rumours of what happened to your dear Father. Was it true that Vestan murdered him with his own hand? Drove a blade into his unprotected spine while his back was turned? And then scrawled the words 'Here lies the last Saxon Baron' on the flagstones with your Father's own blood..."  
Again the red mist just descended like the snap of fingers. Treguard pulled his fist back and swung it at Fear's skeletal face, rotating his body with full force through a full one hundred and eighty degrees. In all his years, Treguard was sure he had never thrown a harder punch.  
It was a redundant gesture. The fist simply passed, without the slightest iota of resistance, straight through Fear's jaw. The impetus of the punch was such that Treguard was pulled across himself with it, lost his balance completely and fell sideways to the floor once again, with a painful grunt. He slowly turned and looked up.  
Fear looked down at him, a broad smile of triumph distorting his icy features. "You weren't listening were you, Treguard? Nothing here is real. Nothing." Suddenly, Fear clenched his own fist and swung it down towards Treguard's face. The big Dungeon Master recoiled and raised his arm to protect himself. The fist just passed through him and made contact with nothing at all.  
The last thing Treguard saw before the image of Lord Fear faded away completely was his enemy's face twisted by mocking laughter. He could still hear the laughter echoing around the now blank, featureless chamber he was in long after the illusion had vanished.  
  
Fear sat on his throne, the techno-magic mirror showing him an image of Treguard stuck on his backside in his empty room. Fear allowed himself another moment of quiet gloating before he spoke again.  
"Allow me to explain, Treguard," he said finally.  
On the screen he saw Treguard look up to seek the source of the unseen voice. "It doesn't look like I can stop you," replied the Lord of Dunshelm sourly.  
"You are experiencing the latest in Dungeon Mastery," explained Fear. "A new breakthrough by all accounts, Treguard. And through it I can do anything." Fear leaned forward in his seat slightly, and kept his eyes fixed on Treguard. "Anything."  
  
Bumptious sat in his cell feeling guilty. It was entirely irrational to feel guilty of course. It wasn't his fault, and he couldn't take responsibility for what Fear chose to do, but he still felt guilty. If it weren't for him after all, Fear wouldn't even have been able to start his plan to snare Treguard.  
It had to be said that if it weren't for Treguard marching blithely into the lion's den like some rank amateur, the plan wouldn't have worked at all. Well maybe it didn't have to be said, but Bumptious decided to say it anyway, as it made him feel slightly less guilty.  
He got to his feet, and stepped up to the cell door. He reached through the bars and nudged Skarkill, who was once again snoozing in his seat by the door.  
"Wh-what?" murmured Skarkill wearily.  
"You awake?" teased Bumptious, in a passably good imitation of Lord Fear's voice.  
"Yes, yer Fearship!" answered Skarkill, sitting up hurriedly. "I never sleeps on duty, sir." He blinked a couple of times, looked around, and then realised that Fear wasn't there. He was in the next chamber watching the mirror. Skarkill looked over his shoulder and saw Bumptious standing on the other side of the bars behind him, grinning mischievously. "Oh very funny," growled Skarkill, "What lemmin' did you learn that jolly from?"  
Bumptious simply shrugged. "And here's you, the life and soul of the party?" He sniffed. "It's fun when you sleep I suppose. I've never heard floorboards rattle to the tune 'She'll Be Coming Round The Mountain' till you fell asleep the other day and your snores started shaking things up."  
"I don't snore!" protested Skarkill, affronted.  
"Do me a favour," Bumptious hooted, "I've met drunk Vikings with an asthma problem who sleep more quietly than you."  
Skarkill got to his feet, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a small booklet. Menacingly, he held it in position to rip it to shreds, and shot Bumptious a warning look. The dwarf's face fell, and he raised his hands in a placatory gesture.  
"No," he protested weakly. "Not me rule-book. Please. Anything but that. Put me in chains! Put me in solitary! Just don't hurt me rule-book!"  
"What d'you say then?" demanded Skarkill.  
Bumptious took on the expression of a petulant child deprived of his favourite toy. "I'm sorry, I won't insult you again."  
"And...?"  
"And you don't snore really," added Bumptious miserably, "You sleep as peacefully as a new-born babe." He wanted to say "baby-pig" but of course he didn't.  
"That's better," nodded Skarkill, and put the book away again. "You watch it from now on or..." he paused for effect, "...the book gets it." Skarkill resumed his seat and made himself comfortable, then glanced over his shoulder at the dwarf in annoyance. "What'd you wake me up for anyway?"  
Bumptious looked at him for a moment, and then sighed unhappily. "I take it from all the shouting in the other room that Treguard's in custody now."  
Skarkill nodded absently, no harm in keeping the prisoner up-to-date.  
"So Fear's switched the spell off now?" Bumptious probed. "Your lizard-friend isn't disguised as me anymore?"  
"S'right," grunted Skarkill.  
"So..." Bumptious swallowed, unsure of how wise he was being to draw attention to himself like this. "So what happens to me now? I mean, Fear doesn't need me for his spell now."  
"Are you in an 'urry to be executed or somethin'?" taunted Skarkill.  
"If you're goin' to do it anyway, well, yes."  
Skarkill looked amused. "Well, I'll be 'appy to oblige, personal- like, when I gets permission. But the boss is busy right now so I best not disturb 'im. I'm sure we'll gets round to you when 'e's finished with the Dungeon Master."  
  
"It's Time, Treguard," continued Lord Fear, his cold, cold eyes still fixed firmly on the image of his archenemy on the screen.  
"Time for what?" demanded Treguard.  
"Don't be an oaf all your life," growled Fear irritably. "Time is the breakthrough. It is my invention. The Past and even The Future."  
"You never were slow with the delusions of grandeur," Treguard retorted, "but I thought even you could not claim to have invented such a thing as one of the very building blocks of the World itself."  
"Not literally, Treguard," said Fear, who was determined not to be swayed from his explanation. "My invention is the Chronosphere. A Time Ring if you like. With it, I can do anything..."  
"Most madmen can."  
"...And you are inside it right now." This time, Treguard had no interruption to offer. Fear continued. "You no doubt think that the Dungeon lives again, Treguard. That the Questing Season has begun once more. I'm afraid that neither is quite the case. That's why the ghost you encountered in the cavern wouldn't obey your commands."  
Treguard looked up again, clearly still looking for some source to the voice. "Keep talking," he growled in a low, dangerous voice.  
"The simple fact is," continued Fear, "that the Dungeon will never live again. At least not unaided. Tell me, why do you think I left the Pool of Veracity in the Black Tower instead of destroying it?" Still no response from Treguard. He just sat still and stared at nothing, clearly listening intently. "It's because I knew you'd be stupid enough to steal it and install it in Dunshelm. And I knew that sooner or later it'd cripple the Dungeon. Like I said before, you make things far too easy for us." Fear allowed himself another chilling smile. "You murdered your own Dungeon. And you a Dungeon Master? Ha!" Fear leaned forward a little. "But I'm not one to waste time gloating of course. Well except when I'm awake. But there's an important reason why you must give me Knightmare Castle, Treguard. It's because that Castle and that Dungeon are both your responsibility. It is your first purpose to protect them. And I am the only one who can save them after your mistakes. So it's your duty to grant me control of them."  
"What do you mean?"  
"After you fitted the Pool of Veracity in the antechamber of your misbegotten stronghold, you deformed the Dungeon, distorted it with the taint of technology. And you didn't remove it until it was much too late. Now magic alone is not nearly enough to sustain the Dungeon, or even to revive it. Technology is all that can possibly bring about its reformation. And in that realm I have no equal. That makes me the only one who can save the Dungeon. Your own Code of Honour demands that you grant the Castle and its Dungeons to me."  
Treguard got to his feet, and stood defiantly. "Make you the Dungeon Master?" he scoffed. "Your delusions become more acute by the moment..."  
"What I say is not delusional," said Fear coolly, "It is simple fact."  
"And how are you to persuade me," snapped Treguard, "that the Dungeon will never live again without your interference? I was hiking through it only hours ago."  
"Oh yes," smirked Fear. "Like only minutes ago you were locked up in a cell while a powerful, charismatic, not to mention incredibly handsome, Technomancer stood taunting you on the other side of the door? And yet where are they now, Treguard? They just disappeared, didn't they? They vanished into thin air. Almost like they didn't exist. Almost like they were just an... illusion perhaps?"  
Treguard's face fell again.  
"The Chronosphere, Treguard," cackled Fear. "It's the ultimate weapon, and it gives me ultimate power over you."  
"What is this Chronosphere you keep ranting about?"  
"I spent several years inventing it," explained Fear, "and four more years building it, all as part of the plan to lure you to my lair. It can best be described as a fishing rod, Treguard. But unlike a normal fishing rod, the Chrono doesn't pluck fish from the watery depths. No, the Chrono plucks scraps of Time from the Past or the Future of the Dungeon and pulls them into the Present day."  
Treguard looked stunned. "Time?" he gasped. "It syphons Time?"  
"Yes, that's another way of putting it. You see the chambers you and your friends were blundering through all last night were part of the Dungeon, but the Dungeon was not really there. I pulled the Cavern and the Courtyard from a possible Future where the Dungeon was allowed to complete its reformation. I've sent them back now." Fear smiled and got to his feet. "The prison cell you were locked in I took from a Past era of the Dungeon. Only an image that time you understand, not the physical form. In truth, I sealed you, not in a cell, but inside the Chronosphere itself. As long as you are in there, I can call on anything from the Dungeon's Past and the Dungeon's Future, and use them to fashion the darkest, most dreadful dreams. Dreams that I will unleash upon you, Treguard." Fear took a step forward. "I shall see all your Knightmares, your dark dreams, played out in front of my eyes like so much cheap theatre. But for you it will be a battle for survival..." Fear's smile grew to a rictus of pure sadism "...until you grant me Knightmare Castle!"  
  
Dervlinne's wail of terror was still echoing round the walls of the cavern for several moments before she regained her composure. She was gasping for breath with the sheer effort of tearing her petrified eyes away from the calamitous drop below her. It took an awful lot to induce vertigo in an elf. Lissard had clearly found the limit and even exceeded it.  
She wasn't sure how long she had just stared into the depths before she could find intelligible words. It was only a few minutes in fact, but it seemed like hours to her.  
"Wh-wh-where are we?" she finally managed to stammer.  
Lissard was still crouched on the ledge behind her, relishing the terror in the elf's reaction. "That issss the quessstion-nessss, issss it not?" he mused. "Only perhapssss it issssn't."  
"A question for a question," Dervlinne noted nervously. "I sense that you feel a need to avoid answering me. Something to hide, lizard?"  
"Why should I hide anything-nessss?" shrugged Lissard. "I have you completely-nessss in my power."  
"Another question for a question." She shuffled a little, her arms growing increasingly uncomfortable as she hung there.  
Lissard did not seem bothered by her analyses. He just shrugged. "I warned-nesss you before, elf-woman, that you would not be grateful-nessss, if I revealed-nessss to you what you wished to know." He smiled. "You didn't lisssten. I offer the sssame-nessss warning now, she-sssprite."  
"Answer my question," insisted Dervlinne. "I'm not afraid of the truth. Only lies concern me."  
"Ssso be it," nodded Lissard, in a grotesque parody of diligent respect. "The anssswer isss exactly where you were."  
With a stiff movement born of her prone position, Dervlinne looked over her shoulder at Lissard, genuinely angered. "Enough word games, you foul little toad!" she scowled with typical elfin gracelessness.  
"You asssked the wrong quessstion, she-sssprite" explained Lissard, "if you want-nessss to learn anything new-nessss that issss."  
"What do you mean?"  
"I mean you haven't gone-nessss very far, sssso 'where' tellssss you nothing."  
"Well what question should I have asked then?" Dervlinne felt like she was about to scream again, not with fear this time, but with the sheer frustration of having to talk to this dismal little half-man.  
"You should have asssked when we are," said Lissard.  
"When?"  
Again the smile. Lissard clearly enjoyed knowing more than Dervlinne, although not nearly as much as he enjoyed showing that fact off. "Yessss. We are pressssently in the Third Level of the Dungeon-nessss, ssssome twenty yearssss before you ssset off on your journey-nessss from Anwin Wood."  
There was no scream from Dervlinne this time. No cry of horror. No look of petrified shock. In fact she made no noise at all. She just stared at her Atlantean enemy with incomprehension.  
  
Treguard was seated again on the floor. Well, if it was a floor. All of a sudden he was not sure that anything he could see or hear around him was real, or if it meant anything at all anymore.  
At first he'd thought that Lord Fear's boast that he could do anything was just that, a boast. But now he understood the nature of what he was dealing with, he realised that, essentially, the words were the truth. Fear could access any part of the Dungeon, past or future, that he pleased, and as the Dungeon was a realm of limitless possibility, he could pretty well do anything he liked, restricted only by the limits of his own imagination. And Lord Fear had a big imagination  
So the question now was what Treguard could do about it. He wasn't sure exactly what Fear had meant by being sealed in the Chronosphere, but it left Treguard in the unhappy position of not being able to tell what was real and what was not. This meant that, in contrast to Fear's apparent omnipotence, Treguard was pretty close to powerlessness.  
Knowing as he did the perils of the Dungeon better than anyone, he understood the incredible danger he was in. If Fear could reshape Treguard's surroundings into any form from the Dungeon's history, then he could throw anything at him until he agreed to hand over Knightmare Castle.  
From his current position Treguard really didn't know what to do. It made him shudder to think what would be heading his way if he didn't accept Fear's terms, and yet how could he accept them? It would make his enemies the Powers That Be, and Lord Fear would be the most powerful evil England had known since the Gruagach itself. Could Treguard allow himself to be the one responsible for that happening?  
It was also nagging away at him that some of Fear's words had had a ring of truth to them. It was Treguard's fault that the Dungeon had been unable to renew itself, and the well being of the Dungeon was Treguard's responsibility. Fear had been right. In that respect, and in the respect of the not inconsiderable threat to his own life, it suddenly sounded feasible to agree. And yet what disasters could follow for England if Dunshelm fell back into evil hands?  
It stood to reason that he was going to get a first hand taste of exactly what those disasters would be in the next few moments. Everything that the Dungeon had ever been, everything that was ever in it, everyone who had ever occupied it, and all that it ever could become. All of it could be reached through this chronosphere, and all of it could be... thrown... at... Treguard.  
Treguard suddenly looked up, a chink of light breaking into the darkness of his thoughts. Everything that the Dungeon had ever been? Everyone?  
"Of course," Treguard hissed to himself quietly. "The Dungeon is not a force for Evil anymore. Since I destroyed the Gruagach, it represents both Good and Evil." And of course in the Dungeon, Good was represented by...  
"What was that, Treguard?" boomed the sickeningly familiar voice around the chamber, interrupting his thoughts. "Have you decided to co- operate, or do we proceed with the formalities of torture and personal insults?" Fear's voice sounded like he was hoping beyond hope that Treguard would choose the latter. Well, it would be such a shame to disappoint him. And besides, now that Treguard knew a possible escape route, he actually needed Fear to link to the Past.  
"Do your worst, bone-brain," snarled Treguard.  
"Good!" gloated Fear. "I do hate it when they give up without a fight."  
"Just remember," added Treguard, "Kill me, and I'll never be able to make you the Dungeon Master."  
"I don't have to kill you, Treguard," said the voice of Fear simply. "I just have to hurt you an awful lot. And the ability to hurt people is just one of my many great talents."  
Suddenly Treguard felt a dizzy, sickening sensation. He held his head in his hands and screwed his eyes tightly closed. He heard a ruinous crumbling noise all around him for some moments, each dull groan of sound accompanied by a furious vibration in the floor and air around him, adding to his dizziness and disorientation.  
Eventually the oppression passed, the ache of confusion dissipated and he was able to open his eyes. He found himself on his knees in a small flagstoned chamber with four open doors. The chamber was quite well-lit but other than that relatively featureless. The problem was not the room itself, nor the hideous chopping and hissing noises that echoed around it. No. The problem was what was in the room, the source of the chopping and hissing, looming over Treguard like a living statue commemorating all the worst corruptions of the human spirit. Three times the height of a man, a huge, mutated face without flesh, all propped up by four obscene parodies of skeletal legs, each with as many joints as most people's vertebrae. Vertebrae were all that the creature lacked. It was white as chalk from tip to toe, with mismatched teeth sharp as razors and long as Treguard's forearm.  
"Well here's a blast from the past, eh Treguard?" laughed Fear's voice. "And, oh isn't that sweet? The cuddly little animal's clearly been missing you."  
Accompanied by a chuckle from Fear, the catacombite took a faltering step toward Treguard and bit at him. The old Dungeon Master rolled out of the way hurriedly and backed away along the floor.  
"You destroyed one of these once upon a time, remember?" Fear teased. "What fun, eh? A rematch. Only this time you don't have a magic sword with you do you?"  
Treguard slowly edged to his feet and backed away further from the advancing creature. He hadn't needed it pointing out to him that he didn't have a magic sword. In fact, he didn't have a sword at all, magic or otherwise.  
"Don't forget what I told you, Fear," he gasped, not taking his eyes away from the catacombite. "Kill me and Knightmare will never be yours."  
Fear's answer was chilling. "It might be a worthy sacrifice just to see you die, Treguard."  
These words hit Treguard like a slap. Fear was willing to let him die without taking Dunshelm? It might have been a bluff of course, but it still wasn't what Treguard was expecting to hear, and he didn't have time to weigh it up. The catacombite was already upon him.  
Treguard waited until the last instant, twisted through ninety degrees and sprung to the side, evading the latest attempt from the creature to snap at him. The catacombite had now been drawn from the middle of the chamber and Treguard's path to the doors was now open. He selected the middle-right door, darted forward, and disappeared into the darkness of the portal.  
It was here that he hit a major snag. He found that the portal didn't actually go anywhere. It was nothing more than an alcove with a wall a couple of feet inside it.  
"Oh no, Treguard, there's no escape from the Chronosphere," jeered Lord Fear, "Not so much a case of 'No turning back' as a case of 'Nowhere to turn'. That chamber may be in the Past, but it's also in the Present. That means you're stuck in that chamber until I choose to rid you of it."  
The catacombite by now had turned toward Treguard and was pursuing him again. Treguard backed as far into the portal as he could and pressed himself as flatly to the wall as he could, keeping himself just inches out of the reach of the catacombite. Snap, snap went the jaws of the creature time and again, reaching, straining at Treguard, but the smallness of the portal kept it from reaching any real distance inside. Treguard found himself gasping for breath, wishing that he'd stayed as fit as he had once been during the Crusade to Constantinople.  
"That's it, Dungeon Master," taunted Fear's odious tones, "suck that gut in! Hide the flab!"  
Treguard knew that now was as good a time as he was going to get to play his hunch. Keeping himself pinned as far back as he could, he gently slowed his breathing and concentrated. He closed his eyes gradually, pulled within himself almost, going gradually into a trance. He retreated into the corners of his mind, and now his mind was looking outwards, heading to a place that it had not been for many years...  
  
Majida knew that she was in over her head. She was not used to Dungeoneering, and even though she'd always tried to pretend she knew what she was doing during her time as the Dungeon Master's assistant, the truth was she had always been happy to let Treguard take the lead when it really mattered.  
Now though he wasn't here. Majida was alone. So she had to act alone. She had to take the lead this time. Her problem was her lack of experience of course. It was too little to rely on. Therefore her tactics right now might have seemed, to a neutral observer, a little wayward. Her experience had told her that her current predicament required the employment of subtlety.  
Majida, knowing how unreliable her paltry experience was, had decided to try ignoring it altogether and to go in all guns blazing instead. This was a mistake, not least because she didn't have a gun, but also because she was hopelessly outnumbered.  
She'd set up her "cunning" attack by leading Rod around the hillside and finding a path up to the foot of Marblehead Tower which they could both climb. Then, she untethered the horse from the wagon and removed all the equipment from it. She led Rod round to the back of the wagon and together they pushed it forward towards the castle portcullis. It was heavy and made for slow progress. Majida's intention was to use it as a battering ram to try and force in the portcullis. Unfortunately, it was moving so slowly that by the time it arrived at the entrance, it did no more than strike the bars with a vibrant clang that rattled along the walls inside.  
Within moments the portcullis was raised and Skarkill, Raptor, and Sylvester Hands were all there. Majida, astutely recognising her minor miscalculation, immediately turned and leapt onto Rod's back. The horse whinnied in annoyance as she gave a sharp yank on his reins, but turned as instructed and quickly galloped away down the hill, with their three assailants in hectic pursuit.  
Lord Fear himself then stepped out of the entrance, eager to see what the cause of the disturbance was. "Well, well, well," he mused as he saw Majida disappearing into the night on horseback, "the genie wasn't even bright enough to run away when she had the chance."  
He shrugged, deciding to let Skarkill deal with her. Majida was no longer important. Treguard was all that mattered now.  
He turned and walked back inside, absently forgetting to close the door.  
  
"Merlin! Merlin!" In the world of his dreams, Treguard's voice always sounded distant and swimmy, even to himself, muffled like his ears were stuffed with wool.  
In his trance, Treguard found he was standing on the bank of a narrow brook running through a clearing in the heart of a vast yet strangely dead forest. He wasn't sure how he knew the forest was so large. But then it was his dream, it was probably just up to him. The weather was bleak. The waters of the brook seemed to flow unnaturally fast.  
"Wotan?" he tried. "Herne? Leilocen?"  
Out of the woods on the far bank stepped an old man in ragged robes. He had a tangled grey-white beard and hair that seemed to stretch all the way down to his waist and a wide-brimmed hat, none of which quite concealed a hairline that had receded some way up his head. As in Treguard's previous encounters with him in his dreams, the Warlock held the same oddly carved staff in his right hand and he wore the same cloak that rustled like leaves wherever he walked. As had always been the case when he had conversed through dreams with the old wizard, he couldn't make out the exact details of the face.  
"You can call me by all of my one hundred names if you like, Treguard," the old man admonished the Dungeon Master sternly, "It won't give me the ability to walk any more quickly. A little patience would not go amiss."  
"Your pardon, Merlin," answered Treguard, "but I fear I have little time."  
"More accurately," the dream-figure corrected him, "Fear has Time. He has Time in his grasp. Literally."  
Treguard looked at him in surprise. His hunch had proven correct. Although Merlin was long-gone in his own era, by using the Chronosphere's own link to the Past, Treguard was able to communicate with the era that the catacombite chamber had been summoned from - an era when Merlin was still at large within the Dungeon. By going into a trance he was able to speak to Merlin through his dreams as he had done several times before, and perhaps with his help Treguard could work out what to do next to combat the Chronosphere.  
What he hadn't expected was to find that Merlin already seemed to know about it all. This after all was the Merlin of the Past, the Merlin of the conflicts with Mogdred, Morghanna and Malice. Surely he couldn't know about the Chronosphere. Surely he couldn't even realise that this was not the Treguard he knew, but the Treguard of the Future.  
As if in answer to his thoughts, the old man spoke, "You never truly understood the nature of your own dreams did you? And here's you, the Lord of Dreams himself?" He chuckled softly. "It's only to be expected, of course. Mortals live long enough to learn only so much before they run out of time." Neither of them seemed to have moved but suddenly Treguard realised he was sitting next to the old man on the same shore of the brook. "You are communicating to me through your mind, Treguard. Through your thoughts, your dreams and your memories. Therefore I have to speak to you in the same way - through your thoughts and memories. It thus goes without saying that I will know what you do." The old wizard looked at the Dungeon Master closely. "It's also why I seem like less of a dodderer here than I do in the physical world. Your mind shapes the way I manifest myself in your dreams. I am how you would like me to be, rather than the forgetful old fool that I truly am." He paused thoughtfully and looked off into the dark emptiness of the woods. "Whether either one is better than the other is another matter of course."  
Treguard was initially a little embarrassed to hear his own thoughts of the old man being expressed straight back at him so candidly, but he didn't dwell on it. After all, he had little time.  
"So you know everything about Lord Fear?" he demanded urgently, worried about what might be happening back in the Chronosphere.  
Again, the old man chuckled. "In fact, I've always known about him. He is the latest to bear the authority of Terror. The great Enchanter Toldriss spoke of earlier incarnations, all who battled vainly in the face of Courage. But never dying." He paused, as if weighing up whether it was right to reveal more. It seemed it was. "In the Time I speak to you from, some years before you will first cross his path, Lord Fear is already building his power, quietly, behind the scenes as it were. In a way which none could ever imagine. He is presently allowing the many conflicts within Knightmare Castle to play themselves out, and hoping that in the end it will leave himself the only winner."  
Treguard's interest was piqued. "Conflicts within Knightmare?" he pried. "Which conflicts? Between myself and Mogdred? Involving the Gruagach perhaps? Vestan?"  
The old man merely looked at him.  
"Tell me, please," said Treguard.  
"I doubt that Lord Fear could profit from Mogdred's downfall," was the old man's only, somewhat cryptic, response, which seemed neither to answer the question nor even to tally with the facts.  
"But..." Treguard stammered, "but he did profit from it. When we cast Mogdred into the Chaos lands, Fear became the new..."  
"I think I have already said enough about this," interrupted the dream-figure. "Some knowledge must only be learned in the natural flow of Time - how that knowledge is acted upon is the only element which must remain in motion. This Chronosphere is already jeopardising that flow quite enough without you deliberately adding to the problem."  
Treguard sighed. In the realities of the physical world he would doubtlessly have pressed the matter further, but here in the landscape of his own mind, he was able to sense that the old one would not be drawn any further on the subject, and that argument would be pointless. "Alright," nodded Treguard. "So what can you tell me?"  
The old man gazed into the woods once more. "Merely what you already know."  
Treguard couldn't resist a growl of frustration. He was irritated enough by having to answer riddles, it was even worse having to listen to someone who talked in them. "What do you mean?"  
"This is your dream, Treguard," repeated the dream-figure. He turned and looked at Treguard through exhausted eyes, eyes that Treguard still couldn't focus on. "Do you remember when you fought the King of Elfland?"  
"Of course."  
"And you remember we spoke through your dreams then?"  
Treguard nodded impatiently.  
"You asked me," continued the old man, "if you could find the ley- paths in Anwin Wood, and you were unhappy with my response. You told me that you needed to know the answer. Do you remember what I told you after that?" Treguard narrowed his eyes, but did not respond. "I said that you must know, or else why would you seek the answer from a figment of your own dreams?"  
Treguard was not used to Merlin displaying such clarity of memory - he actually seemed to remember the events far better than Treguard himself. "This really is a dream," he thought, and in so thinking he realised the very meaning that the old one was driving at.  
"That part of me which you call Merlin can touch upon your dreams," resumed the old one, looking away again, "but he cannot control them, and he can introduce only a little knowledge to you through them. The only thing he - I - can do to any significant degree is help you to organise your thoughts. I can also tell you that which you have already worked out for yourself, but for which you lack the trust in your own judgement to believe." He turned and looked Treguard in the eye once again. "Because for some reason you will believe the word of some forgetful old dotard who hasn't bothered to shave in seven centuries over the word of the Dungeon Master of Knightmare Castle."  
Treguard looked thunderstruck. He gazed into the brook, saw its waters jump and dance before his eyes, almost as though it were laughing, even mocking him for his absurd lack of self-confidence. He recognised the truth ringing through the old man's words.  
"Can it be, Merlin?" he asked. "Have I been wasting my time doing this all these years? Have I always been searching for answers I've already known?"  
"Quite the paradox," answered the old man, amused. "Your questions about redundant questions are in themselves, redundant questions, for if I can answer them so can you. But no, I wouldn't say that you've been wasting your time. There's nothing wasteful about getting a second opinion. Or at least a clarification."  
Treguard nodded. He suddenly knew exactly what he needed to ask, and that was a start. "Well then surely you can help me with this. I don't want you to tell me how to escape from the Chronosphere, that's not the way it works..."  
"Good, you're learning."  
"What I need you to tell me," Treguard continued, the bit now firmly between his teeth, "is if I already know how to escape from it."  
The old man nodded. And as he did so, Treguard gazed at him and found that he could suddenly see the face clearly. It was like looking through a telescope at the hazy blurred image of a distant object, which was only now being brought into glorious focus. For the first time ever he could not just look at the face but actually see it as well, the details suddenly all in sharp clarity. The beard now looked much shorter and seemed to have a few streaks of dark colour in it, the eyes seemed wider and darker, the head of hair much fuller but also more closely cropped. The bearing was fierce, the expression saturnine but not unfriendly. The odd-shaped staff had now resolved itself into the shape of a magnificent longsword, gleaming like liquid-fire even in the bleak light. He realised, now that he was able to see it, that the face he was looking at was not Merlin's, it never had been. It was his own.  
"Now that you finally understand the nature of your own dreams," said the old man, "you can see me for what I really am. Merlin is merely a spark of hope in men's hearts and minds. He exists in everyone. I am more you than I am Merlin. The answer to your question by the way..."  
"...is YES!" Treguard finished for him, triumphantly. "I know exactly what to do!"  
The old man smiled broadly, a smile that said "I told you so," and for once in his life, Treguard didn't mind one bit.  
  
Still hanging painfully by her arms from the ceiling of the cavern, Dervlinne looked over her shoulder at Lissard impatiently, expecting some further explanation. After all, the only thing she'd been told so far - "it's twenty years before you set off from the forest" - did seem open to a little more detail.  
Instead Lissard simply remained where he was and stared back silently. It was Dervlinne who blinked first.  
"You have nothing to add then?" she inquired. "You just tell me that I have not set off on my journey yet and..."  
"That issss not what I ssssaid," interjected Lissard. He explained to her in his hissing tones about the Chronosphere.  
"I do not understand," answered the elf when he finished. "Why has Lord Fear sent me to a chamber in the Past? And why this chamber?"  
"Thissss Chamber-nessss," explained Lissard, "issss the Cavern of Dessscendantsss. It issss the creation of the Gruagach itsssself. The era of the Dungeon-nessss that it wasss taken from wasss the era of the Gruagach'sss own rule-nesss."  
Dervlinne swallowed. She suddenly knew exactly what Lord Fear was planning to do, and she didn't need Lissard to finish his explanation. He was clearly aware of this, but with some relish he finished it anyway.  
"When I return-nesss to Marblehead, Hisss Lord-nesss Fear isss going to sssend thisss chamber back to the Passst with you ssstill inssside it. We're going to let the Gruagach deal-nesss with you." The only exit was behind him, a low rent in the face of the cavern wall just above the ledge he stood on. "That will be in jussst a few momentsss. And don't worry- nesss, she-sssprite!" he added as he turned to leave. "The Gruagach wasss alwaysss a marvellousss hossst-nessss. He never resss-ceived a sssingle complaint about the accomodation from the guessstsss he hurled into the Dungeon."  
"Oh... good," answered Dervlinne flatly as Lissard climbed through the exit.  
  
Treguard looked into the catacombite's empty eyes, as it continued to take ineffectual chomps at him through the doorway. Upon waking from his trance, Treguard discovered that the catacombite had managed to get a slight nip to his right hand, drawing a little blood, but the pain was so minor it hadn't been nearly enough to wake him.  
The catacombite was mindless, had no concept of impatience only an instinct to feed, so it just remained where it was and continued to snap at Treguard. But it still couldn't reach him inside the door. The upshot of all this was that they were both stuck where they were.  
"Fear!" shouted Treguard. "Lord Fear, answer me!"  
  
Lord Fear resumed his seat after checking the disturbance at the Castle entrance. On the screen he saw that, as he had suspected, there had been no developments in the Chronosphere. Treguard was still stuck in the doorway, and the catacombite was still unable to get at him.  
Fear found that his amusement at Treguard's dilemma had waned with the ongoing deadlock.  
"Fear!" he heard Treguard calling out, "Lord Fear, answer me!"  
"What is it, Dungeon Master? Had enough already? Too exciting for you? Well at your age I s'pose it's bad for your heart..."  
"Actually," came the response, "I'm bored. This is stalemate, Fear. It's getting us nowhere. I can't leave this alcove, the catacombite can't get to me."  
Fear rubbed his jaw. "I agree, Treguard, this is very dull. It was an interesting spectacle at first, but..." His voice tailed off, and he narrowed his eyes. "Yes, let's turn up the heat shall we? For both our sakes." He raised his hand and performed an elaborate gesture with his fingers.  
On the screen he could see the catacombite fade away and the walls and ceiling of the room dissolve. Treguard sank to his knees and held his head again as everything around him shuddered, warped and groaned as it started to reform itself.  
"There, much more exciting for you, Treguard," cackled Lord Fear. "In fact, I'd call it 'Bringing the house down!' Enjoy your headache, by the way. It'll be the most fun thing you experience today."  
  
Majida's plan had worked after all, just not in exactly the way she'd expected. In fact it had only worked at all because of something going wrong. No sooner had Rod carried her to the foot of the hill than he'd suddenly bolted away from their pursuers as fast as his legs could carry him across the marshes. Majida couldn't cope with the speed of his full gallop and she fell off before they'd gone twenty feet.  
As luck would have it, it was so dark that Skarkill, Raptor and Hands couldn't see her lying face down and bruised in the mud and just hurtled past her in the wake of the horse, who was on his way to goodness knows where. Once she was sure that they were gone, she slowly hauled herself, aches, pains and all, back to her feet. She brushed herself down, an exercise in futility if ever there was one; her fatigues were more mud than cloth.  
Honestly, she didn't even know what she was still doing here! If Treguard wanted to go and get captured by Lord Fear, well that was his business. As far as Majida saw it there was no reason for her to come running. If the bearded old grouch couldn't do something perfectly simple like crawl through a tunnel without it collapsing behind him, well, why should Majida be the one who had to get him out of it? Why? Why should she? Why?  
She was so busy ranting to herself in her head like this that she quite failed to notice that she'd started climbing back up the hill to the Castle. She only realised what she was doing when, having reached the crest of the hill, she gazed in the pre-dawn darkness upon the dim outline of Marblehead fortress, and noticed that the portcullis guarding the entrance appeared to still be raised.  
Her first instinct was alarm. What if something was about to come running out of the Castle straight at her? Her second instinct was paranoia. What if something was just inside the entrance, waiting to leap upon her as she entered?  
Her third instinct, and she knew immediately that it was the right one, was contempt. "Stoopid Fear-lord thing! He forget to close door." So, insofar as the door was open her battering ram had had the effect she'd hoped for, just not in quite the way she'd imagined.  
Keeping her head down, she quietly scampered across the grasses of the hilltop until she reached the outer wall of the Castle, and then slowly edged along it, past the scrappy debris of the wrecked wagon, toward the entrance. She edged right up to the prow of the door, crouched low, and furtively peered inside. She could see the doorway opened onto a narrow corridor leading into the well-lit main hall of the Castle. There were no guards, at least not here. Fear probably didn't have enough personnel for it.  
"Price of being bad guy," mused Majida, "No-one like you, no-one wanna work for you."  
Keeping low, she edged through the door and started along the corridor.  
  
Far behind where Majida was infiltrating the fortress of Marblehead, Skarkill, Raptor and Sylvester Hands had finally caught up with the horse, which had finally stopped running and was standing on the edge of a marsh- field, panting unhappily, chewing on the leaves of a broad thicket of brambles, and visibly sulking.  
Hands, in a typical display of shrewdness and deduction, was the first to say, "'Ere! Sh-sh-she... the genie-thingy. She ain't 'ere!"  
"Brilliant observation, Sly," grunted Raptor. "The horse must've been a decoy." This was an overestimation of Majida's tactical aptitude of course, but in effect it was so.  
"Decoy?" asked Sly, publicly reaching through his cloaks to adjust his underwear, without the slightest trace of embarrassment. "Wassat then?"  
"Something that smells nicer than your hands when you do that!" snapped Skarkill.  
"We better be goin' back!" said Raptor, hurriedly. "The genie might get into the Castle." He and Skarkill turned to head back to Marblehead.  
"Nah," Sly Hands smiled his ghastly black-toothed smile, "You should relax, like."  
Skarkill looked at him. "Why?"  
"She'd only get in if the door was open, righ'?" Sly nodded to himself confidently. "Lord whassisname wouldn' leave the door open, like."  
"That's your expert assessment of the situation, is it?" sighed Skarkill.  
"Yeah."  
Skarkill looked at Raptor, his face split by even more concern. "We'd better hurry." They both ran for the fortress as fast as they could, leaving Hands alone with the horse.  
Hands stood there, staring blankly at the retreating backs of his companions. He idly stroked the horse's nose.  
"Bit rude, them runnin' orf like tha'," Hands grumbled. He looked at the horse, who looked back at him. They stared at each other for a long moment, as though they sensed a certain kinship, that unique moment which happens in everyone's life when they encounter a soul-mate of similar intellectual quality. Hands adjusted his underwear once more, tugged a large tuft of grass from the ground, and kindly fed it to the horse. "I likes you," he added while the horse blissfully munched on the grass. "Whass ya name then?"  
"NEIGH," answered Rod brightly.  
"Oh go on, tell me," Hands cajoled him.  
"NEIGH," Rod repeated, a little testily this time. He didn't like having to answer a question twice.  
"Oh, why not?" whined Hands, looking hurt.  
The smelly human obviously didn't even understand fluent horse. Rod let out a whinnying sigh of disappointment. Perhaps he hadn't found his intellectual equal after all.  
  
Majida found that the main hall was deserted. It was sparsely decorated or furnished in here, just a polygonal expanse of grey stone. Lord Fear had clearly regarded Marblehead as little more than a functional convenience when he'd stolen it from Queen Maldame, a means to an end. It looked like it might have been a splendid enough Castle under its previous ownership, but it now looked a bit desolate, all colourless and neglected. For one who prided himself on his sense of style and drama, Fear could be incredibly lacking when it came to artistic taste. But then what else was to be expected. Home after all, is where the heart is, so what possible glamour could there be in the home of a man who had a heart of pure stone?  
There were several staircases at the far end of the room, two going up, one going down. She could hear the sound of activity, footsteps, the occasional raised voice, and the unmistakable hum of techno-sorcery, all from several levels above. She was disappointed that it was so obvious which way to go. She was feeling a bit nervous and would have appreciated the excuse to stall.  
She was about to take her first, faltering step up the stairs, when caught sight of something hanging on one otherwise bare grey wall. A sheathed sword, glowing in the torchlight, spreading some much-needed colour into one tiny corner of the room, was chained there. A sword forged in the Holy Lands and plucked from a dream. Morpheus.  
No doubt about it now, thought Majida. Treguard had been captured.  
  
"Your Lorrrrd-nessss!"  
Lord Fear was enjoying the agony Treguard was experiencing on the screen as the old chamber dissolved and the new one formed around him. Truly, such top quality entertainment as this was rare, even on shows like BeastEnders. He scowled in annoyance at the interruption as Lissard came scampering into the throne room from the Dungeon elevator.  
"Oh what is it, Lisssard, you contemptible little fly-gobbler?"  
"Your Lord-nessss," announced Lissard with a preposterously theatrical bow, "the elf-maiden isss now sssecure-nesss in the Cavern of Dessscendantsss. She isss ready for dessspatch-nesss to the Passst at your command, your Lord-nessss."  
Fear looked uninterested. "Is that all? You could have finished that ages ago."  
"I took the liberty," explained Lissard, "of gloating and taunting- nesss her for a little while, before returning."  
Fear gave him a rare smile of admiration. "Oh you did, did you? Well that's a perfectly healthy impulse I suppose. Good man. We'll sort her out as soon as I'm finished with the Dungeon Master here." Lissard performed another protracted, absurdly low bow. Fear turned his attention back to the screen. "You can open your eyes now, Treguard."  
  
As the warping effect passed, Treguard found he'd started sweating. He didn't want to go through this much longer, as the stress was proving too much.  
He slowly looked up and found that he was kneeling in a less than tenable-position - he was by the edge of the drop in the old Fire Cave of Level 1. The drop was just inches behind him, and on the other side of it, in the cavern wall, was the monstrous head of a stone salamander, flames blasting intermittently from its nostrils. The flames ran up through cracks in the rocks that formed the cavern ledge.  
When Lord Fear had said he was going to turn up the heat, Treguard hadn't realised that he'd meant it literally. Still, this was hardly the most dangerous place Fear could have sent him to.  
Treguard carefully stepped away from the drop and looked up, assessing what he'd experienced during the chamber's metamorphosis. He had been correct, the process of sending a chamber back to the Past, or bringing a new one into the Present, required direct links to outside the Chronosphere - links to the World the Dungeon chambers were being syphoned from, and before that, through Fear's own operation of the device, to the Present. Now that the process was over, those links were gone, but Treguard now knew exactly how to escape. All he needed was for a repeat of the process. The best chance of that was of course through Lord Fear's own ego. Time for a little taunting.  
"Is that it?" scoffed Treguard. "Is that the best you can throw at me?"  
Fear's voice rumbled around the chamber. "Don't get cocky, Dungeon Master. Flames can spread almost anywhere."  
It was then that another of those things Treguard should have expected, for the simple reason that it was so unexpected, but he didn't, happened. The ledge beneath his feet began to split. Tiny little cracks in the stone all along the ledge began to widen a little, and from them more bursts of flame burned their way into the open air.  
Treguard was surprised, but betrayed no alarm. He merely kept calm, and took a small step to the side, standing on a solid space between two cracks, and just stayed still as the flames spouted around him.  
"How very ordinary," he said, sounding as unimpressed as he possibly could. He could imagine the irritated look on Fear's face. "I was more wounded last time I trimmed my beard."  
"That must've been so long ago I'm surprised you can remember," spat Fear gracelessly.  
Treguard smiled. He knew he was already beginning to frustrate Fear. "You, the Lord Fear?" he taunted. "Who would have thought someone of that name could be so utterly incapable of scaring anyone? That must be embarrassing for you." He added a quiet smirk, knowing that Fear would see it. Knowing it would add to his frustration. "If you're trying to scare me into giving you what you want, you'll have to come up with a lot more than this. I was more scared when Motley threatened to cook me dinner."  
Fear's voice snarled around the chamber. "Well then you'll get a lot more, Treguard! A lot more than you can live with!"  
It began again, the tempestuous oppression as the chamber around Treguard began to dissolve and fade. The pain and stress were excruciating, so dizzying that he could scarcely think. He closed his eyes, covered his ears, and again retreated into himself. He had to concentrate, but he also had to hurry.  
He reached, reached deep along the links into the Past, and found what he was looking for - the Dungeon. His Dungeon, the source of a Dungeon Master's power. Lord Fear's own infernal machine had given him access to it. The power of the Dungeon of Knightmare was now linked directly into the Chronosphere, and he had grasped that link. He then reached out the other way, felt the tangible grasp of the real world, the familiar shape and touch of the Present, all through the operation of the Chronosphere by Lord Fear.  
He then opened his eyes. Everything around him was a blur of grey light and shapeless mass. It was disorienting and painful just to behold it, a formless light that could disfigure the face of purgatory. The dizziness increased, but Treguard ignored it - he suspected that after all the taunts, Fear would throw everything at him in the next chamber. That meant Treguard had only one shot at this, he had to get it right the first time. The pain was sharp, the noise deafening, but Treguard ignored it all. He knew what he had to do, and he would not let something as minor as sensory inconvenience stand in his way.  
He concentrated, drew a breath and then, taking hold of his link to the Past, called upon his Dungeon's power.  
"Spellcasting..." he chanted as loudly as he could above the din, "U-N- I-T-E."  
He then grasped the link to the Present...  
  
Dervlinne heard a sound, a terrible warping grinding noise, and assumed that her time was up. The chamber was about to return to the Past, to entomb her in an era long gone, at the mercy of a Necromancer whose powers were beyond limit, and whose evil was beyond legend. Even the powers and evil of her own Master and Dread Royal Sovereign Arawn, paled before the horrors she was about to face.  
Instead she heard the echo of a familiar voice.  
She looked up in surprise, struggling with the bonds that were chafing her wrists. "Honoured one?" she hissed, recognising the voice of Treguard.  
And suddenly, her wrists were free, which was good.  
Also she was falling through the empty air of the Cavern of Descendants, which was bad.  
She saw images in the rockface of the shaft as she fell. Some of them were the shapes of faces, the faces of past Knights of England who had challenged the Gruagach's evil and fallen to the perils of Dunshelm. Others were the images of places, past chambers of the Dungeon that had ceased to be after the Gruagach had tired of them.  
She made no sound as she fell.  
She made no attempt to adjust her position as she fell.  
She merely carried on observing the faces of the many many courageous Knights who had died by the terrors of Knightmare, and whose ranks she was about to join, as she fell past them.  
Then she wasn't falling at all.  
  
For Lord Fear it was a strange experience, one that he would never be able properly to describe. One moment he was sitting on his mecha-throne, watching the distortion of the chamber dissolving on the screen. He thought he heard Treguard shouting something, although he couldn't make out what it was against the noise. The next moment he felt as though a large hand had taken a firm grip of his wrist.  
He turned and looked, and saw that a large hand had taken a firm grip of his wrist. It was Treguard's hand. And it was attached to Treguard, who was most definitely not visible on the screen anymore.  
"Hello Fear," said Treguard, "Have you met my hand?" He released Fear's arm, and clenched his hand into a fist. "Now my fist is going to meet your head."  
The punch that connected with Fear's jaw made a sound loud enough to be heard outside the Castle. Lissard, who was only standing a few yards away, flinched at the noise, but he was quickly running to his Master's aid. Treguard spun and swung a forearm at the Atlantean's face. Lissard backed away. Happily, he evaded Treguard's swing with some impressive agility. Unhappily, he backed straight into an elf-maiden who was standing right behind him and looking at him with contempt.  
"Hello again, little lizard," she cooed, dangerously, as the Atlantean turned to face her in alarm. She aimed her fist, drew it back...  
The sound of Lissard crashing into the opposite wall was almost as loud as the sound of the punch Fear had taken in the mouth. Together, Treguard and Dervlinne closed in on Fear, who was backing away from them in... well fear.  
He backed straight into Majida and the real Bumptious, who had both stepped into the chamber from the prison cells right behind him. Together they shoved him to the floor. Fear landed with a grunt of pain, not to mention embarrassment.  
"Let's go kick some bottom!" cried Majida triumphantly, drawing one or two momentary looks of perplexity. She then whistled to Treguard. "Catch!" she called, and hurled Morpheus to him. Treguard caught it easily, fastened the scabbard to the belt at his waist, and drew the sword.  
Fear and Lissard both hauled themselves to their feet. They fell back to the floor attempting to evade Treguard's attack - he swung the sword at them with all the ferocity of his Anglo-Saxon blood, forcing them to duck underneath its path. Lord Fear responded by raising his palm and launching a pair of white-hot fireballs in Treguard's direction. Treguard swung the sword again, this time in a neat sweeping arc around the face of his body. The fireballs both hissed against the metal skin of Morpheus, and dissipated harmlessly.  
Not wanting to face Treguard when he was in this mood, Fear and Lissard then turned and ran for the elevator at the centre of the chamber, barging their way past Majida and Bumptious through the sheer force of their own panic.  
Bumptious turned and dived after them, grabbing Lissard by the ankle and hauling him to the floor. "That," announced the dwarf with harsh righteousness, "is for feloniously-impersonating a legally-designated ore- gatherer of the All-Dwarvish Miners' Guild without firstly obtaining a permit to use statutorily-allotted mining equipment under the authority of said-Guild." He realised about halfway through saying it that as quips go this wasn't the punchiest of all time, but he decided not to worry about that.  
Fear had by now arrived on the lift platform and, at the snap of his fingers, it started carrying him down to the floor below.  
Lissard looked alarmed as he realised that Fear was leaving without him. "Lorrrrd-nesss," he cried from the edge of the floor where Bumptious pinned him down, "Your Lorrrd-nesss, don't leave me..." Bumptious clipped Lissard's ear (or whatever that thing on the side of his head that passed for an ear was) just to make him be quiet. "OoouuuuccCCCCHHHH-nessss!!" whined Lissard.  
Majida and Dervlinne were about to leap after Lord Fear, when Treguard called them back. "Let him go," he sighed heavily, leaning on his sword.  
"But, honoured one," protested Dervlinne, "He is esc-..."  
"He is escaping," Treguard interrupted sharply, "from his own Castle. It appears that his own plan to make it look like he has been driven out of Marblehead has led to him being driven out of Marblehead. What a pity." He grinned slightly. "Never mind." He put Morpheus back in its sheath, and then stretched his arms. His muscles felt painfully cramped after being sealed in the Chronosphere. ""I'll send some dungeoneers to keep track of where they go after we've returned home."  
"Dungeoneers?" said Majida, confused. "But they can't..."  
Treguard raised a hand. "I know what you're going to say, Majida. I believe a new door has opened to us. As for him," he added, giving Lissard a painful nudge with his boot, "we'll keep him captive. I'm sure he can provide some valuable information about any other hideouts that Fear might retreat to."  
Eyes brimming with defiance, Lissard looked up at Treguard from under the foot of Bumptious that was keeping him held down. "You'll never make me talk-nesss, Dungeon Massster. No. I'll never sssay a word. Not a word. I'll never talk-nesss. Never. Neveerrr...!"  
Bumptious rolled up a sleeve. "Want me to hit you?"  
Lissard gulped. "Um, well maybe I can tell you one or two thingsss."  
  
Fear had still not stopped running even by the time he'd left the main hall. He was powering through the entrance so quickly he collided with Raptor and Skarkill as they were heading the other way, knocking both of them to the floor. Even then, Fear hardly slowed down, he just stumbled over them and carried on running. He didn't even notice as he got outside that dawn was breaking, wouldn't have cared if he had.  
Raptor knocked his head against the wall as he was knocked over. He sat up rubbing his bruised crown, almost tearful at the prospect of a huge headache by mid-morning. "What's up with him?" he asked weakly.  
Skarkill watched his Lord and Master disappearing down the hillside like the world and its dog were after him, and shrugged. "We lost," he sighed with an upward frown. He hauled himself to his feet sadly and slowly traipsed after his battered leader.  
Raptor watched Skarkill go, felt the headache setting in already, collapsed back onto the floor, and fell fast asleep. It seemed easiest.  
  
It took little time, with Bumptious' willing help, and Lissard's not- so-willing help, to establish the full facts. Bumptious had been excavating the ground of Glastonbury Tor for the paloranite the Mozcaro had genuinely hired him to find - that much of the story they'd heard at Krochester Market had been true. While Bumptious had in fact known a good deal better than to search through Marblehead, for the plan to capture Treguard to work, Lord Fear required a living captive, and Bumptious and his paloranite- hunt had seemed the ideal cover. So, Skarkill's goblins abducted him while he was digging. Then, using a little magic, Lissard had been disguised as Bumptious to direct Treguard right into Fear's grasp. The nonsensical no- front-teeth gibberish which he'd been spouting all the time was just an attempt to hide the fact that he couldn't do even a half-decent impression of the dwarf's voice.  
Treguard looked at Dervlinne. "I sensed that I was being betrayed by someone, she-sprite," he explained, "and I assumed it was you. I apologise."  
"It is unimportant, honoured Dungeon Master," answered Dervlinne, although once again she didn't sound much like she meant it.  
"So what we do now, uh?" asked Majida.  
"We destroy the Chronosphere, surely," suggested Dervlinne.  
Lissard, after a certain amount of coaxing (or more accurately, blood- loss), had revealed that the Chronospere was in fact just a fairly large blue disc-shaped object on the ceiling above their heads. It looked so nondescript that they'd all assumed it was just part of the ceiling itself.  
Treguard looked up at it now pensively. "No," he stated finally. "No we won't destroy it."  
Majida looked at him in amazement. "Oh I knew dees would happen soon or late!" she grumbled. "He gettin' so old he don't even see trouble when it blow up in his face."  
"It's not that, Majida," Treguard answered, "It's just I realised something while I was trapped in that thing. Something that Fear told me."  
"Oh, Fearlord tell you, uh?" sneered Majida. "Must be true den, whatever eet ees."  
"As it happens," Treguard continued, "I realised that on this occasion what he told me was very much the truth." The others, even Lissard, all looked at the Dungeon Master in surprise. "He pointed out to me the very self-evident fact that I am responsible for the Dungeon and its well-being. And that, far from upholding that responsibility, I have harmed it."  
"Harmed it?" said Bumptious.  
"Yes, harmed it," answered Treguard. "The Dungeon is not pure Chivalry, but it is pure magic. And that purity I have compromised with my foolish dabbling with techno-sorcery some years ago. I have to find a way to atone for that and restore the Dungeon. He also claimed that technology was the only way to do that. Again I suspect he was telling the truth." He looked up at the Chronosphere. "And I think we may have exactly what we need right here. We'll return the chamber Dervlinne was imprisoned in to its own era - best not to risk causing damage to causality."  
"Cos-whattie?" asked Majida.  
"And then," finished Treguard, ignoring her, "I have a new purpose for this little contraption."  
  
Hordriss the Confuser was, by nature, a sceptic. When Treguard had asked for help with a particularly crucial and powerful magic project, Hordriss had agreed, cautiously, to help out. When he'd heard what the project was, he'd almost flatly refused to help. It was anathema to any Pagan Wizard to endorse the foulness of Technosorcery, let alone to dabble in it. Nevertheless, Treguard and Majida had eventually persuaded him to give them the assistance they needed to transport the Chronosphere North to Knightmare Castle, and then to find a way to install it. It was Majida, interestingly, who had managed to point out the crucial fact that if he didn't help them install it, the Dungeon would never exist again.  
"Techie-magic is only thing that work in Dungeon now," she explained. "And Dungeon need more power to come back."  
"But..." Hordriss tried weakly to argue.  
"Look!" snapped Majida, losing her temper. "You got better suggestion, you tell us! You got no suggestion, you help us! You get?!"  
In the face of such furious authority, Hordriss would hardly have dared not to help. Sheepish and pale-faced, he agreed.  
According to Hordriss, by installing the Chrono into the Dungeon Antechamber, and by interfacing it directly with the Pool of Veracity's multi-Level visual-integration units, and by charging its accelerators through the ionic-displacement fields of the Dungeon's self-restructural equilibrium motors (Treguard didn't quite get that bit - to be fair, he was still dumbstruck with amazement at how much Hordriss seemed to understand about Technomancy for such a passionate devotee of pure magic), he had given the Dungeon, as it were, a heart transplant. The Dungeon now finally had the power to complete the process of reforming itself, a process that would be complete within minutes. He warned both Treguard and Majida that as the power that sustained the Dungeon would now be Technology, and not the elements of Nature, the form that it would take in the New Age of Adventure would be very, very different from any form it had taken before. Exactly what that would be, even Merlin himself could probably never anticipate.  
Treguard just stared at him blankly. Majida nodded wisely to herself.  
"Uh?" she said a moment later.  
"I think," explained Treguard, "that he means my plan has succeeded. The Dungeon needs to draw power from time and space to shape itself. This ability is what I inadvertently destroyed. The Chronosphere functions by a similar principle, so we just supplanted the old with the new."  
"Uh?"  
"It worked," sighed Treguard, hoping that the discomfiting feeling around his temples wasn't the onset of another migraine.  
Hordriss bristled as the Chronosphere above their heads pulsed with ever-growing power. "The indignity!" he fumed. "An endorsement of loathsome technology, and patience with ill-educated servants. You should be ashamed, Dungeon Master."  
Having said all that, Hordriss stormed out in a passable imitation of disgust. It was only once he was out of the Castle and heading for home that he allowed himself to look terribly pleased with his own genius.  
There was a moment of silence in the antechamber after Hordriss had left. Of course it was Majida who finally broke it, just as Treguard looked up and realised that things were reaching a nexus on the other side of the Dungeon door.  
"He cute when he angry," said Majida.  
Treguard smiled weakly at her, suddenly feeling too elated to be bothered by her wittering for a change. He was in his element now. He felt the cool tingle of anticipation in his heart, as he realised that the tasks he had been born to do were about to begin again. He felt alive again. He felt young again. Why spoil it by losing his temper with a genie whose intellect was clearly no greater in size than Sylvester Hands' singing ability? He merely gestured to the door. "If you would be so kind, Majida...?"  
"Ha?"  
"Time turns once more," snapped Treguard intensely, the fierce authority of old now back in his voice in a way that it hadn't been since before Majida had known him. She was quite startled. "The fire burns as before. Time out is gone; the Quest Season is on. At last."  
With a start, Majida suddenly realised what he was on about. "Oh of course," she said, quickly retrieving the Staff of Light from behind Treguard's seat, then stepped up to the entrance of the antechamber. "Enter stranger!" she commanded magnificently and struck the Staff against the ground next to the door. There was a burst of light and a crackle of power. The door swung open.  
And in stepped the first Dungeoneer of the new era. 


End file.
